My  Friend  Annabel  Lee 


MY  FRIEND 
ANNABEL  LEE 


BY 

jttaclanc 


Chicago 

Herbert    S.   Stone  and  Company 
MCMIII 


COPYRIGHT,  1903 

BY 

HERBERT  S.  STONE  &  COMPANY 
Issued  September  i,  1903 


TO 

LUCY   GRAY,    IN    CHICAGO 

THIS    BOOK 
AND   ONE  PALE  LAVENDER    FLOWER  OF  AMARANTH 

MONTREAL 
JULY,    1903 


434883 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACH 

I.  The  Coming  of  Annabel  Lee   .     .     .    .    rf  i 

II.  The  Flat  Surfaces  of  Things   .....  7 

III.  My  Friend  Annabel  Lee 13 

IV.  Boston    .     .    .     .     . .     .  15 

V.  A  Small  House  in  the  Country    ....  29 

VI.  The  Half-Conscious  Soul      ......     35 

VII.  The  Young-Books  of  Trowbridge      ...     43 
VIII.  "Give  Me  Three  Grains  of  Corn,  Mother"       55 

IX.  Relative 61 

X.  Minnie  Maddern  Fiske .     69 

XI.  Like  a  Stone  Wall 81 

XII.  To  Fall  in  Love      .........     89 

XIII.  When  I  Went  to  the  Butte  High  School      97 

XIV.  "And  Mary  MacLane  and  Me"  .    .     .     .113 
XV.  A  Story  of  Spoon-Bills 131 

XVI.  A  Measure  of  Sorrow       ....     .     .     .     .153 

XVII.  A  Lute  with  no  Strings  . 163 

XVIII.  Another  Vision   of    my    Friend    Annabel 

Lee    .  .   I73 

XIX.  The  Art  of  Contemplation 183 

XX.  Concerning  Little  Willy  Kaatenstein     .     .   193 
XXI.  A  Bond  of  Sympathy       .     .     .     .     .     .     .225 

XXII.  The  Message  of  a  Tender  Soul    .     ...  233 

XXIII.  Me  to  My  Friend  Annabel  Lee    .     .     .    .241 

XXIV.  My  Friend  Annabel  Lee  to  Me    .     .     .     .255 
XXV.  The  Golden  Ripple       ........  257 


My    Friend   Annabel    Lee 


THE   COMING   OF   ANNABEL   LEE 

BUT  the  only  person  in  Boston  town 
who  has  given  me  of  the  treasure  of 
her  heart,  and  the  treasure  of  her 
mind,  and  the  touch  of  her  fair  hand  in 
friendship,  is  Annabel  Lee. 

Since  I  looked  for  no  friendship  what 
soever  in  Boston  town,  this  friendship 
comes  to  me  with  the  gentleness  of  sun- 
showers  mingled  with  cherry-blossoms, 
and  there  is  a  human  quality  in  the  air 
that  rises  from  the  bitter  salt  sea. 

Years  ago  there  was  one  who  wrote  a 

poem   about    Annabel    Lee — a    different 
i 


.MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 


lady  from  this  lady,  it  may  be,  or  perhaps 
it  is  the  same — and  so  now  this  poem  and 
this  lady  are  never  far  from  me. 

If  indeed  Poe  did  not  mean  this  Anna 
bel  Lee  when  he  wrote  so  enchanting  a 
heart-cry,  I  at  any  rate  shall  always  mean 
this  Annabel  Lee  when  Poe's  enchanting 
heart-cry  runs  in  my  mind. 

Forsooth  Poe's  Annabel  Lee  was  not  so 
enchanting  as  this  Annabel  Lee. 

I  think  this  as  I  gaze  up  at  her  graceful 
little  figure  standing  on  my  shelf;  her 
wonderful  expressive  little  face;  her 
strange  white  hands;  her  hair  bound  and 
twisted  into  glittering  black  ropes  and 
wound  tightly  around  her  head. 

Were  you  to  see  her  you  would  say  that 
Annabel  Lee  is  only  a  very  pretty  little 
black  and  terra-cotta  and  white  statue  of 
a  Japanese  woman.  And  forthwith  you 
would  be  greatly  mistaken. 

It   is   true   that   she   had  stood   in  ex- 


THE  COMING  OF  ANNABEL  LEE      3 

tremely  dusty  durance  vile,  in  a  Japanese 
shop.in  Boylston  street,  for  months  before 
I  found  her.  It  is  also  true  that  I  fell 
instantly  in  love  with  her,  and  that  on 
payment  of  a  few  strange  dollars  to  the 
shop-keeper,  I  rescued  her  from  her  sur 
roundings  and  bore  her  out  to  where  I 
live  by  the  sea — the  sea  where  these  won 
derful,  wide,  green  waves  are  rolling,  roll 
ing,  rolling  always.  Annabel  Lee  hears 
these  waves,  and  I  hear  them,  at  times 
holding  our  breath  and  listening  until  our 
eyes  are  strained  with  listening  and  with 
some  haunting  terror,  and  the  low  rushing 
goes  to  our  two  pale  souls. 

For  though  my  friend  Annabel  Lee 
lived  dumbly  and  dustily  for  months  in 
the  shop  in  Boylston  street,  as  if  she  were 
indeed  but  a  porcelain  statue,  and  though 
she  was  purchased  with  a  price,  still  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee  is  exquisitely  hu 
man. 


4  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

There  are  days  when  she  fills  my  life 
with  herself. 

She  gives  rise  to  manifold  emotions 
which  do  not  bring  rest, 

It  was  not  I  who  named  her  Annabel 
Lee.  That  was  always  her  name — that  is 
who  she  is.  It  is  not  a  Japanese  name,  to 
be  sure — and  she  is  certainly  a  native  of 
Japan.  But  among  the  myriad  names 
that  are,  that  alone  is  the  one  which  suits 
her;  and  she  alone  of  the  myriad  maidens 
in  the  world  is  the  one  to  wear  it. 

She  wears  it  matchlessly. 

I  have  the  friendship  of  Annabel  Lee; 
but  for  her  love,  that  is  different. 

Annabel  Lee  is  like  no  one  you  have 
known.  She  is  quite  unlike  them  all. 
Times  I  almost  can  feel  a  subtle,  conscious 
love  coming  from  her  finger-tips  to  my 
forehead.  And  I,  at  one-and-twenty,  am 
thrilled  with  thrills. 

Forsooth,  at  one-and-twenty,  in  spite  of 


THE  COMING  OF  ANNABEL  LEE      5 

Boston  and  all,  there  are  moments  when 
one  can  yet  thrill. 

But  other  times  I  look  up  and  per 
chance  her  eyes  will  meet  mine  with  a 
look  that  is  cold  and  penetrating  and  con 
temptuous  and  confounding. 

Other  times  I  look  up  and  see  her  eyes 
full  of  indifference,  full  of  tranquillity, 
full  of  dull  deadly  quiet. 

Came  Annabel  Lee  from  out  of  Boyl- 
ston  street  in  Boston.  And  lo,  she  was  so 
adorable,  so  fascinating,  so  lovable,  that 
straightway  I  adored  her;  I  was  fascinated 
by  her;  I  loved  her. 

I  love  her  tenderly.  For  why,  I  know 
not.  How  can  there  be  accounting  for 
the  places  one's  loves  will  rest? 

Sometimes  my  friend  Annabel  Lee  is 
negative  and  sometimes  she  is  positive. 

Sometimes  when  my  mind  seems  to 
have  wandered  infinitely  far  from  her  I 
realize  suddenly  that  'tis  she  who  holds  it 


6  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

enthralled.  Whatsoever  I  see  in  Boston 
or  in  the  vision  of  the  wide  world  my 
judgment  of  it  is  prejudiced  in  ways  by 
the  existence  of  my  friend  Annabel  Lee — 
the  more  so  that  it's  mostly  unconscious 
prejudice. 

Annabel  Lee's  is  an  intense  personality 
— one  meets  with  intense  personalities  now 
and  again,  in  children  or  in  bull-dogs  or  in 
persons  like  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

And  I  never  tire  of  looking  at  Annabel 
Lee,  and  I  never  tire  of  listening  to  her, 
and  I  never  tire  of  thinking  about  her. 

And  thinking  of  her,  my  mind  grows 
wistful. 


THE    FLAT   SURFACES    OF   THINGS 

"^  |  AHERE     are    moments,"     said    my 
A       friend  Annabel  Lee,  "when,  willy 
nilly,  they  must  all  come  out  upon 
the  flat  surfaces  of  things. 

"They  look  deep  into  the  green  water 
as  the  sun  goes  down,  and  their  mood  is 
heavy.  Their  heart  aches,  and  they  shed 
no  tears.  They  look  out  over  the  bril 
liant  waves  as  the  sun  comes  up,  and 
their  mood  is  light-hearted  and  they  en 
joy  the  moment.  Or  else  their  heart 
aches  at  the  rising  and  their  mood  is 
light-hearted  at  the  setting.  But  let  it  be 
one  or  the  other,  there  are  bland  moments 
when  they  see  nothing  but  flat  surfaces. 
If  they  find  all  at  once,  by  a  little  accident, 
that  their  best-loved  is  a  traitor  friend, 
7 


8  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

and  they  go  at  the  sun's  setting  and  gaze 
deep  into  the  green  water,  and  all  is  dark 
and  dead  as  only  a  traitor  best-beloved 
can  make  it,  and  their  mood  is  very 
heavy — still  there  is  a  bland  moment 
when  their  stomach  tells  them  they  are 
hungry,  and  they  listen  to  it.  It  is  the  flat 
surface.  After  weeks,  or  it  may  be  days, 
according  to  who  they  are.  their  mood 
will  not  be  heavy — yet  still  their  stomach 
will  tell  them  they  are  hungry,  and  they 
will  listen.  If  their  best-loved  cease  to 
be,  suddenly — that  is  bad  for  them,  oh, 
exceeding  bad;  they  suffer,  and  it  takes 
weeks  for  them  to  recover,  and  the  mark 
of  the  wound  never  wears  away.  But 
with  time's  encouraging  help  they  do 
recover.  But  if,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "their  stomach  should  cease  to  be, 
not  only  would  they  suffer — they  would 
die — and  whither  away?  That  is  a  flat 
surface  and  a  very  truth.  And  when  they 


THE  FLAT  SURFACES  OF  THINGS     Q 

consider  it — for  one  bland  moment — they 
laugh  gently  and  cease  to  have  a  best- 
loved,  entirely;  they  cease  to  fill  their 
veins  with  red,  red  life;  they  become  like 
unto  mice — mice  with  long  slim  tails. 

"For  one  bland  moment. 

"And,  too,  the  bland  moment  is  long 
enough  for  them  to  feel  restfully,  deli- 
ciously,  but  unconsciously,  thankful  that 
there  are  these  flat  surfaces  to  things  and 
that  they  can  thus  roll  at  times  out  upon 
them. 

"They  roll  upon  the  flat  surfaces  much 
as  a  horse  rolls  upon  the  flat  prairie  where 
the  wind  is. 

"And  when  for  the  first  time  they  fall  in 
love,  if  their  belt  is  too  tight  there  will 
come  a  bland  moment  when  they  will  be 
aware  that  their  belt  is  thus  tight — and 
they  will  not  be  aware  of  much  else. 

"During  that  bland  moment  they  will 
loosen  their  belt. 


IO  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

"When  they  were  eight  or  nine  years 
old  and  found  a  fine,  ripe,  juicy-plum 
patch,  and  while  they  were  picking  plums 
a  balloon  suddenly  appeared  over  their 
heads,  their  first  delirious  impulse  was  to 
leave  all  and  follow  the  balloon  over  hill 
and  dale  to  the  very  earth's  end. 

"But  even  though  a  real  live  balloon 
went  sailing  over  their  heads,  they  con 
sidered  this:  that  some  other  kids  would  get 
our  plums  that  we  had  found.  A  balloon 
was  glorious — a  balloon  was  divine — but 
even  so,  there  was  a  bland  moment  in 
which  the  thought  of  some  vicious,  tow- 
headed  Swede  children  from  over  the  hill, 
who  would  rush  in  on  the  plums,  came 
just  in  time  to  make  the  balloon  pall  on 
them. 

"But,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee,  "by 
the  same  token,  in  talking  over  the  bal 
loon  after  it  had  vanished  down  the  sky, 
there  would  come  another  bland  moment 


THE    FLAT   SURFACES    OF   THINGS          II 

when  the  plums  would  pall  upon  them — 
pall  completely,  and  would  appear  hateful 
in  their  eyes  for  having  kept  from  them 
the  joy  of  following  the  divine  balloon. 
That  is  another  aspect  of  the  flat  sur 
faces  of  things.  And  they  must  all  come 
out  upon  the  flat  surfaces,  willy-nilly. 

"And,"  said  Annabel  Lee,  glancing  at 
me  as  my  mind  was  dimly  wistful;  "not 
only  must  they  come  out  upon  the  flat 
surfaces  of  things,  but  also  you  and  I  must 
come,  willy-nilly. 

"And  since  we  must  come,  willy-nilly," 
added  the  lady,  "then  why  not  stay  out 
upon  the  flat  surfaces?  Certainly  'twill 
save  the  trouble  of  coming  next  time. 
Perhaps,  however,  it's  all  in  the  coming." 


nun 

MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

MY  FRIEND  Annabel  Lee  never 
fails  to  fascinate  and  confound 
me. 

Much  as  she  gives,  there  is  in  her  infi 
nitely  more  to  get. 

My  relation  with  her  never  goes  on, 
and  it  never  goes  back.  It  leads  nowhere. 
She  and  I  stop  together  in  the  midst  of 
our  situation  and  look  about  us.  And 
what  we  see  in  the  looking  about  is  all 
and  enough  to  consider. 
And  considering,  I  write  of  it. 


BOSTON 

"VTESTERDAY  the  lady  was  in  her 
A  most  amiable  mood,  and  we  talked 
together — about  Boston,  it  so  hap 
pened. 

"Do  you  like  Boston?"  she  asked  me. 

"Yes,"  I  replied;  "I  am  fond  of  Boston. 
It  fascinates  me." 

"But  not  fonder  of  it  than  of  Butte,  in 
Montana?" 

"Oh,  no,"  said  I,  hastily.  "Butte  in 
Montana  is  my  first  love.  There  are  bar 
ren  mountains  there — they  are  with  me 
always.  Boston  doesn't  go  to  rmy  heart 
in  the  least,  but  I  like  it  much.  I  like  to 
live  here." 

"I  am  fond  of  Boston — sometimes," 
Annabel  Lee  observed.  "Here  by  the  sea 
15 


1 6  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

it  is  not  quite  Boston.  It  is  everything. 
This  sea  washes  down  by  enchanted  pur 
ple  islands  and  touches  at  the  coast  of 
Spain.  But  if  one  can  but  turn  one's  eyes 
from  it  for  a  moment,  Boston  is  a  fine  and 
good  thing,  and  interesting. " 

"I  think  it  is — from  several  points  of 
view,"  I  agreed. 

"Tell  me  what  you  find  that  interests 
you  in  Boston,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

"There  are  many  things,"  I  replied.  "I 
have  found  a  little  corner  down  by  the 
East  Boston  wharf  where  often  I  sit  on 
cold  days.  The  sun  shines  bright  and 
warm  on  a  narrow  wooden  platform  be 
tween  two  great  barrels,  and  I  can  be  hid 
den  there,  but  I  can  watch  the  madding 
crowd  as  it  goes.  The  crowd  is  very 
madding  down  around  East  Boston.  And 
I  do  not  lack  company — sometimes  brave, 
sharp-toothed  rats  venture  out  on  the 


BOSTON  17 

ground  below  me.  They  can  not  see  the 
madding  crowd,  but  they  can  enjoy  the 
sunshine  and  hunt  mice  among  the  rub 
bish. 

"The  dwellers  in  East  Boston — they  are 
the  poor  we  have  always  with  us.  They 
are  not  the  meek,  the  worthy,  the  deserv 
ing  poor.  They  are  the  devilish,  the  ill- 
conditioned — one  with  the  wharf  rats  that 
hunt  for  mice.  Except  that  the  rats  do 
occasionally  try  to  clean  their  soft,  gray 
coats  by  licking  them  with  their  little  red 
tongues;  whereas,  the  poor — But  why 
should  the  poor  wash?  Are  they  not  the 
poor? 

"As  I  rest  me  between  my  two  great 
barrels  and  watch  this  grewsome  pageant, 
I  think:  It  seems  a  quite  desperate  thing 
to  be  poor  in  Boston,  for  Boston  is  said  to 
be  of  the  best-seasoned  knowledge  and  to 
carry  a  lump  of  ice  in  its  heart.  From 
between  my  two  barrels  in  East  Boston  I 


1 8  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

have  seen  humanity,  oh,  so  brutal,  oh,  so 
barbarous  as  ever  it  could  have  been  in 
merrie  England  in  the  reign  of  good  old 

Harry  the  Eighth. 

"And  so  then  that  is  very  interesting." 
"In  truth  it  is  so,"  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee. 

"Boston  is  fair,  and  very  fair. — Tell  me 


more." 


"And  times,"  I  said,  "I  sit  in  one  of  the 
window-seats  on  the  stairway  of  the  Pub 
lic  Library.  And  I  look  at  the  walls.  A 
Frenchman  with  a  marvelous  fancy  and 
great  skill  in  his  finger-ends  has  worked 
on  those  walls.  He  painted  there  the  em 
blems  of  all  the  world's  great  material 
things  of  all  ages.  And  over  them  he 
painted  a  thin  gray  veil  of  those  things 
that  are  not  material,  that  come  from  no 
age,  that  are  with  us,  around  us,  above 
us — as  they  were  with  the  children  of 
Israel,  with  the  dwellers  in  Pompeii,  with 


BOSTON  I Q 

the  fair  cities  of  Greece  and  the  inhabit 
ants  thereof. 

"I  have  looked  at  the  paintings  and  I 
have  been  dazzled  and  transported. 
What  is  there  not  upon  those  walls! 

"I  have  seen,  in  truth,  'the  vision  of  the 
world  and  all  the  wonder  that  shall  be.' 

"I  have  seen  the  struggling  of  the 
chrysalis-soul  and  its  bursting  into  light; 
I  have  seen  the  divinity  that  doth  some 
time  hedge  the  earth;  I  have  looked  at  a 
conception  of  Poetry  and  I  have  heard 
the  thin,  rhythmic  sounds  of  shawms  and 
stringed  instruments;  and  I  have  heard 
low,  voluptuous  music  from  within  the 
temple — human  voices  like  sweet  jessa 
mine;  I  have  seen  the  fascinating  idolatry 
of  pagans — and  I  have  seen,  pale  in  the 
evening  by  the  light  of  a  star,  the  wooden 
figure  of  the  Cross;  I  have  leaned  over 
the  edge  of  a  chasm  and  beheld  the  things 
of  old — the  army  of  Hannibal  before 


2O  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

« 

Carthage — the  Norsemen  going  down  to 
the  sea  in  ships — the  futile,  savage  fighting 
of  Goths  and  Vandals;  I  have  seen  sci 
ence  and  art  within  the  walled  cities,  and 
I  have  seen  frail  little  lambs  gamboling 
by  the  side  of  the  brook;  I  have  seen 
night-shades  lowering  over  occult  works, 
and  I  have  seen  bees  flying  heavy-laden 
to  their  hives  on  a  fine  summer's  morn 
ing;  I  have  heard  a  lute  played  where  a 
tiny  cataract  leaps,  and  the  pipes  of  Pan 
mingled  with  the  bubbling  notes  of  a 
robin  in  mint  meadows;  I  have  seen 
pages  and  pages  of  printed  lines  that 
reach  from  world's  end  to  world's  end;  I 
have  seen  profound  words  written  cen 
turies  ago  in  inks  of  many  colors;  I  have 
seen  and  been  overwhelmed  by  the  mar 
vels  of  scientific  things  bristling  with  the 
accurate  kind  of  knowledge  that  I  shall 
never  know;  withal,  I  have  seen  the  com 
plete  serenity  of  the  world's  face,  as  shown 


BOSTON  21 

by  the  brush  of  the  Frenchman  Cha- 
vannes. 

"And  over  all,  the  nebulous  conception 
of  the  long,  ignorant  silence. 

"What  is  there  not  upon  those  wonder 
ful  walls! 

"I  sit  in  semi-consciousness  in  the  little 
window-seat  and  these  things  swim  before 
my  two  gray  eyes.  My  mind  is  full  of  the 
vision  of  murmuring,  throbbing  life. 

"But  what  a  thing  is  life,  truly — for  mar 
velous  as  are  these  pictures,  those  that  I 
have  seen,  times,  down  where  the  rats 
forage  among  the  rubbish,  are  more  mar 
velous  still." 

"Truly,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee, 
"there  is  much,  much,  in  Boston.  Tell  me 
more." 

"Well,  and  there  is  the  South  Station," 
I  went  on.  "Oh,  not  until  one  has  ambled 
and  idled  away  a  thousand  hours  in  that 
place  of  trains  and  varied  peoples  can  one 


22  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

know  all  of  what  is  really  to  be  found 
within  its  waiting-rooms. 

"I  have  found  Massachusetts  there — 
not  any  Massachusetts  that  I  had  ever 
read  about,  but  the  Massachusetts  that 
comes  in  from  Braintree  and  Plymouth 
and  Middleboro  carrying  a  Boston  shop 
ping-bag;  the  Massachusetts  that  is  intel 
lectual  and  thrusts  its  forefinger  through 
the  handle  of  its  tea-cup;  the  Massachu 
setts  that  eats  soup  from  the  end  of  its 
spoon;  the  Massachusetts  that  is  good- 
hearted  but  walks  funny;  the  Massachu 
setts  that  takes  all  the  children  and  goes 
down  to  Providence  for  a  day — each  of 
the  children  with  a  thick,  yellow  banana 
in  its  hand;  the  Massachusetts  that  has 
its  being  because  the  world  wears  shoes — 
for  it  is  intellectual  and  can  make  shoes. 

"And  in  the  South  Station,  furthermore, 
there  are  people  from  the  wide  world 
around.  Actors  and  authors  and  artists 


BOSTON  23 

are  to  be  seen  coming  in  and  going  out 
and  sitting  waiting  in  the  waiting-rooms. 
Some  mightily  fine  and  curious  persons 
have  sat  waiting  in  those  waiting-rooms, 
as  well  as  dingy  Italians  with  strings  of 
beads  around  their  necks. 

"And  in  the  South  Station  there  are  so 
many,  many  people,  that,  once  in  a  long 
while,  one  can  meet  with  some  of  those 
tiny  things  that  one  has  waited  for  for  ( 
centuries.  In  among  a  multitude  of  faces 
there  may  be  a  young  face  with  lines  of 
worn  and  vivid  life  in  it,  and  with  alert 
and  much-used  eyes,  and  with  soft  dull 
hair  above  it.  In  a  flash  one  recognizes 
it,  and  in  a  flash  it  is  gone.  It  is  a  face 
that  means  beautiful  things  and  one  has 
known  it  and  its  divineness  a  long,  long 
time.  And  here  in  the  South  Station  in 
Boston  came  the  one  gold  glimpse  of  it. 

"And  I  have  seen  in  the  South  Station 
a  strange  scene:    that  of  a  mild  Jew  man 


24  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

bearing  the  brunt  of  caring  for  his  large 
family  of  small  children,  while  their  child- 
weary  mother  was  allowed  for  once  in  her 
life  to  rest  completely,  sitting  with  her 
eyes  closed  and  her  hands  folded.  She 
might  well  rest  tranquil  in  the  thought 
that  in  giving  birth  to  that  small  Hebraic 
army  she  had  done  her  share  of  this  du 
bious  world's  penance. 

"And  in  the  South  Station,  as  much  as 
anywhere,  one  feels  the  air  of  Boston. 

"The  air  of  Boston,  too,  is  wonderful — 
and  'tis  not  free  for  all  to  breathe.  'Tis 
for  the  anointed — the  others  must  con 
tent  them  with  the  untinted,  unscented  air 
that  blows  wild  from  mountain-tops  and 
north  seas.  But  for  me,  I  have  eyes 
wherewith  to  see — and  since  the  air  of 
Boston  has  color,  I  can  see  it.  And  I 
have  ears  wherewith  to  hear—and  since 
the  air  of  Boston  has  musical  vibrations, 
I  can  hear  it.  And  I  have  sensibility — 


BOSTON  25 

wherefore  all  that  is  pungent  in  the  air  of 
Boston,  and  all  that  is  fine,  and  all  that  is 
art,  and  all  that  is  beautiful,  and  all  that 
is  true,  and  all  that  is  benign,  and  partic 
ularly  all  that  is  very  cool  and  all  that  is 
bitterly  contemptuous  —  are  not  wholly 
lost  upon  me. 

"If  all  the  persons  who  go  to  and  fro  at 
the  South  Station  were  heroes  and 
breathed  the  air  there  and  left  their  dim 
shadows  behind  them — as  they  do — I  pre 
sume  the  South  Station  would  be  hal 
lowed  ground.  They  all  are  not  heroes, 
but  they  breathe  the  air  and  leave  their 
dim  shadows,  whatever  they  may  be,  and 
ever  after  the  air  of  the  South  Station  is 
tinctured.  And  since  more  than  a  half  of 
these  people  are  of  Boston,  the  air  is  tinc 
tured  therewith. 

"If  you  are  civilized  and -conventional 
you  may  know  and  breathe  this  air.  If 
you  are  not — well,  at  least  you  may  stand 


26  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

and  contemplate  it.     And  always  one  can 
bide  one's  time. 

"My  contemplation  of  it  has  interested 
me. 

"The  air  of  Boston  is  a  mingling  of  very 
ancient  and  very  modern  things  and  ways 
of  thinking  that  are  picturesque  and  at 
times  lead  to  something.  The  ancient 
things  date  back  to  Confucius  and  others 
of  his  ilk — and  the  modern  ones  are  tinted 
with  Lilian  Whiting  and  newspapers  and 
the  theater. 

'One  is  half-conscious  of  this  as  one 
contemplates,  and  one's  thought  is,  'Woe 
is  me  that  I  have  my  habitation  among 
the  tents  of  Kedar!'  One  exclaims  this  not 
so  much  that  one  considers  oneself  be 
nighted,  but  that  one  is  very  sure  that  the 
air  of  Boston  considers  one  so.  To  be 
sure,  it  ought  to  know,  but,  somehow,  as 
yet  one  is  content  to  bide  one's  time. 

"But  yes.     There  is  a  beatified  quality 


BOSTON  27 

in  the  air  of  Boston.  It  is  tinted  with  rose 
and  blue.  It  sounds,  remotely,  of  chimes 
and  flutes.  You  feel  it,  perchance,  when 
you  sit  within  the  subdued,  brilliant  still 
ness  of  Trinity  church — when  you  walk 
among  the  green  and  gold  fields  about 
Brookline  and  Cambridge,  where  orchids 
are  lifting  up  their  pale,  soft  lips — when 
you  are  in  the  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  and 
see,  hanging  on  the  wall,  a  small  dull- 
toned  picture  that  is  old — so  old! 

"Music  is  in  the  air  of  Boston.  It  pours 
into  the  heart  like  fire  and  flood — it  awak 
ens  the  soul  from  its  dreaming — it  sends 
the  human  beingout  into  the  many-colored 
pathways  to  see,  to  suffer,  it  may  be — yes, 
surely  to  suffer — but  to  live,  oh,  to  live! 

"One  can  see  in  the  mists  the  slender, 
gray  figure  of  one's  own  soul  rising  and 
going  to  mingle  with  all  these.  In  spite 
of  the  clouds  about  it,  one  knows  its  going 
and  that  it  is  well.  It  was  long  since  said: 


28  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

'My  beloved  has  gone  down  into  her  gar 
den  to  the  bed  of  spices,  to  feed  in  the 
gardens  and  to  gather  lilies.'  And  now 
again  is  the  beloved  in  the  garden,  and  in 
those  moments,  oh,  life  is  fair" 

My  friend  Annabel  Lee  opened  her 
lips — her  lips  like  damp,  red  quince-blooms 
in  the  spring-time — and  told  me  that 
there  were  times  when  I  interested  her, 
times  when  I  amused  her  mightily,  and 
times  when  in  me  she  made  some  rare 
discoveries. 

But  which  of  the  three  this  time  was, 
she  has  not  told. 


A  SMALL  HOUSE  IN  THE  COUNTRY 

BUT  Boston — or  even  Butte  in  Mon 
tana — is  not  to  be  compared  to  a 
lodging-place  far  down  in  the  coun 
try:  a  tiny  house  by  the  side  of  a  fishy, 
mossy  pond,  in  summer-time,  with  the  hot 
sun  shining  on  the  door-step,  and  a  clump 
of  willows  and  an  oak-tree  growing  near; 
on  the  side  of  the  house  where  the  sun  is 
bright  in  the  morning,  some  small  square 
beds  of  radishes,  and  pale-green  heads  of 
lettuce,  and  straight,  neat  rows  of  young 
onions,  with  the  moist  earth  showing 
black  between  the  rows;  and  a  few  green 
peas  growing  by  a  small  fence;  and  on 
the  other  side  of  the  little  house  grass  will 
grow — tall  rank  grass  and  some  hardy 

weeds,  and  perhaps  a    tiger-lily  or   two 
29 


30  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

will  come  up  unawares.  The  fishy  pond 
will  not  be  too  near  the  house,  nor  too  far 
away — but  near  enough  so  that  the  sing 
ing  of  the  frogs  in  the  night  will  sound 
clear  and  loud. 

Rolling  hills  will  be  lying  fair  and  green 
at  a  distance,  and  cattle  will  wander  and 
graze  upon  them  in  the  shade  of  low- 
hanging  branches.  On  still  afternoons  a 
quail  or  a  pheasant  will  be  heard  calling 
in  the  woods. 

The  air  that  will  blow  down  the  long 
gentle  uplands  will  be  very  sweet.  The 
message  that  it  brings,  as  it  touches  my 
cheeks  and  my  lips  and  my  forehead,  will 
be  one  of  exceeding  deep  peace. 

I  would  live  in  the  little  house  with  a 
friend  of  my  heart — a  friend  in  the  shad 
ows  and  half-lights  and  brilliances.  For 
if  the  hearts  of  two  are  tuned  in  accord 
the  harmony  may  be  of  exquisite  tenor. 

In  the  very  early  morning  I  would  sit 


A  SMALL  HOUSE  IN  THE  COUNTRY   31 

on  the  doorstep  where  the  sun  shines,  and 
my  eyes  would  look  off  at  the  prospect. 
Life  would  throb  in  my  veins. 

In  the  middle  of  the  forenoon  I  would 
be  kneeling  in  the  beds  of  radishes  and 
slim  young  onions  and  lettuce,  pulling 
the  weeds  from  among  them  and  staining 
my  two  hands  with  black  roots. 

In  the  middle  of  the  day  I  would  sit  in 
the  shade,  but  where  I  could  see  the  sun 
shine  touching  the  brilliant "  greenness, 
near  the  house  and  afar.  And  I  could  see 
the  pond  glaring  with  beams  and  motes. 

In  the  late  afternoon  I,  with  the  friend 
of  my  heart,  would  walk'down  among  the 
green  valleys  and  wooded  hills,  by  fences 
and  crumbling  stone  walls,  until  we 
reached  a  point  of  vantage  where  we 
could  see  the  sea. 

In  the  night,  when  the  sun  had  gone 
and  the  earth  had  cooled  and  the  dark, 
dark  gray  had  fallen  over  all,  we  would 


32  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

sit  a%gain  on  the  doorstep.  It  would  be 
lonesome  there,  with  the  sound  of  the 
frogs  and  of  night-birds — and  there  would 
be  a  cricket  chirping.  We  would  speak 
to  each  other  with  one  or  two  words 
through  long  stillnesses. 

Presently  would  come  the  dead  mid 
night,  and  we  would  be  in  heavy  sleep 
beneath  the  low,  hot  roof  of  the  little 
house. 

Mingled  with  the  dead  midnight  would 
be  memories  of  the  day  that  had  just 
gone.  In  my  sleep  I  would  seem  to  walk 
again  in  the  meadows,  and  the  green  of 
the  couutless  grass-blades  would  affect  me 
with  a  strange  delirium — as  if  now  for  the 
first  time  I  saw  them.  Each  little  grass- 
blade  would  have  a  voice  and  would 
shout:  Mary  Mac  Lane,  oh,  we  are  the 
grass-blades  and  we  are  here!  We  are  the 
grass-blades,  we  arejhe  grass-blades,  and  we 
are  here! 


A  SMALL  HOUSE  IN  THE  COUNTRY   33 

And  yes.  That  would  be  the  marvel 
ous  thing — that  they  were  here.  And 
would  not  the  leaves  be  upon  the  trees?— 
and  would  not  tiny  pale  flowers  be  grow 
ing  in  the  ground? — and  would  not  the 
sky  be  over  all?  Oh,  the  unspeakable 
sky! 

In  the  dead  midnight  sleep  would 
leave  me  and  I  would  wake  in  a 
vision  of  beauty  and  of  horror,  with 
fear  at  my  heart,  with  horrible  fear  at 
my  heart. 

Then  frantically  I  would  think  of  the 
little  radish-beds  outside  the  window — 
how  common  and  how  satisfying  they 
were.  Thus  thinking,  I  would  sleep  again 
and  wake  to  the  sun's  shining. 

"You  would  not,"  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee,  "stay  long  in  such  a  place." 

I  looked  at  her. 

"Its  simplicity  and  truth,"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee,  "would  deal  you 


34  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

deep  wounds  and  scourge  you  and  drive 
you  forth  as  if  you  were  indeed  a  money 
changer  in  the  temple." 


ID1F 


THE    HALF-CONSCIOUS    SOUL 

ANNABEL  LEE  leaned  her  two  el 
bows  on  the  back  of  a  tiny  sandal- 
wood  chair  and  looked  down  at  me. 
We    regarded    each    other    coldly,    as 
friends  do,  times. 

"You,"  said  Annabel  Lee,  "have  a  half- 
conscious  soul.  Such  a  soul  that  when  it 
hears  a  strain  of  music  can  hear  away  to 
the  music's  depths  but  can  understand 
only  one-half  of  its  meaning;  but  because 
it  is  half-conscious  it  knows  that  it  under 
stands  only  the  half,  and  must  need  weep 
for  the  other  half;  such  a  soul  that  when 
it  wanders  into  the  deep  green  and  meets 
there  a  shadow-woman,  with  long,  dark 
hair  and  an  enchanting  voice,  it  feels  to 
its  depths  the  spirit  of  the  green  and  the 
35 


36  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

voice  of  the  shadow-woman,  but  can 
understand  only  one-half  of  what  they 
tell:  but  because  it  is  half-conscious  it 
knows  that  it  understands  only  the  half, 
and  must  need  weep  for  the  other  half; 
such  a  soul  that  when  it  is  bound  and  fet 
tered  heavily,  it  knows  since  it  is  half- 
conscious,  that  it  is  bound  and  fettered, 
but  knows  not  why  nor  wherefore  nor 
whether  it  is  well,  which  is  the  other  half — 
and  it  must  need  weep  for  it;  such  a  soul 
that  when  it  hears  thunderings  in  the  wild 
sky  will  awaken  from  sleep  and  listen — 
listen,  but  since  it  is  half-conscious  it  can 
only  hear,  not  know — and  it  sounds  like 
an  unknown  voice  in  an  unknown  lan 
guage,  telling  the  dying  speech  of  its  best- 
loved — it  is  frantic  to  know  the  translation 
which  is  the  other  half;  such  a  soul  that 
when  life  gathers  itself  up  from  around  it 
and  stands  before  it  and  says,  Now,  con 
template  life,  it  contemplates,  since  it  is 


THE   HALF-CONSCIOUS   SOUL  37 

half-conscious,  but  it  for  that  same  reason 
strains  its  eyes  to  look  over  life's  shoul 
ders  into  the  dimness — which  is  an  impos 
sible  thing,  and  the  other  half;  such  a  soul 
that  when  it  finds  itself  mingling  in  love 
for  its  friend,  and  all,  it  enjoys,  oh,  vividly 
in  all  moments  but  the  crucial  moments, 
when  it  aches  in  torment  and  doubt — for 
it  is  half-conscious  and  so  knows  its  lack 
ing. 

"Desolate  is  the  way  of  the  half-con 
scious  soul,"  said  Annabel  Lee. 

"The  wholly  conscious  soul  receives  into 
itself  things  in  their  entirety  without  ques 
tion  or  wonder:  the  half-conscious  soul 
receives  the  half  of  things,  and  knowing 
that  there  is  another  half,  it  wonders  and 
questions  till  all's  black. 

"The  wholly  conscious  soul  is  different 
from  the  wholly  unconscious  soul  in  that 
the  former  is  positive  whilst  the  latter  is 
negative — and  they  both  in  their  nature 


38  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

can  find  rest:  but  the  half-conscious  soul 
knows  that  it  is  half-conscious,  still  it 
knows  not  at  what  points  it  is  conscious 
and  at  what  points  unconscious — for  when 
it  thinks  itself  conscious,  lo,  it  is  uncon 
scious,  and  when  it  thinks  itself  uncon 
scious  it  is  heavily,  bitterly  conscious — 
and  nowhere  can  it  find  rest. 

"The  wholly  conscious  soul  holds  up 
before  its  eyes  a  mirror  and  gazes  at 
itself,  its  color,  its  texture,  its  quality,  its 
desires  and  motives,  without  flinching,  in 
the  strong  light  of  day;  the  wholly  uncon 
scious  soul  knows  not  that  it  is  a  soul,  and 
never  uses  a  mirror:  but  the  half-con 
scious  soul  looks  into  its  glass  in  the  gray 
light  of  dusk— it  sees  its  color,  its  texture, 
its  quality,  its  desires — but  its  motives  are 
hidden.  Its  eyes  are  wide  in  the  gray 
light  to  learn  what  those,  its  own  motives, 
are.  It  can  not  know,  but  it  can  never 
rest  for  trying  to  know. 


THE    HALF-CONSCIOUS    SOUL  39 

"The  wholly  conscious  soul  knows  its 
love,  its  sorrow,  its  bitterness,  its  re 
morse. 

"The  half-conscious  soul  knows  its  love 
— and  wonders  why  it  loves,  and  wonders 
if  it  really  can  love  any  but  itself,  and 
wonders  that  it  cares  for  love;  the  half- 
conscious  soul  knows  its  sorrow — and 
marvels  that  it  should  have  sorrow  since 
it  can  grasp  not  truth;  the  half-conscious 
soul  knows  its  bitterness,  and  realizes  at 
once  its  right  to  and  its  reason  for  bitter 
ness — but,  thinking  of  it,  the  arrow  is 
turned  in  the  wound;  the  half-conscious 
soul  knows  its  remorse,  but  it  is  convinced 
that  it  has  no  right  to  remorse,  since  it 
does  its  unworthy  acts  with  infinite  fore 
thought. 

"The  wholly  conscious  soul  is  a  chas 
tened   spirit   and   so  has  its  measure  of 
happiness;  the  wholly  unconscious  soul  is 
an  unchastened  spirit,  for  it  deserves  no 


40  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

chastisement — neither  has  it  any  happi 
ness,  for  it  knows  not  whether  it  is  happy 
or  otherwise:  but  the  half-conscious  soul 
is  chastised  where  it  is  not  deserving  of  it, 
and  goes  unchastised  where  it  is  richly 
deserving  of  it — and  so  has  no  happiness, 
but  instead,  unhappiness. 

"Woe  to  the  half-conscious  soul,"  said 
Annabel  Lee. 

"How  brilliantly  does  the  emerald  sea 
flash  in  the  sunshine  before  the  eyes  of 
the  half-conscious  soul! — but  burns  it  with 
mad-fire. 

"How  melting-sweet  is  the  perfume  of 
the  blue  anemone  to  the  sense  of  the  half- 
conscious  soul! — but  burns  it  with  mad- 
fire. 

"How  beautiful  are  the  bronze  lights 
in  the  eyes  of  its  friend  to  the  half- 
conscious  soul! — that  burn  it  with  mad- 
fire. 

"How  joyous  is  the  half-conscious  soul 


THE   HALF-CONSCIOUS   SOUL  4! 

at  the  sounds  of  singing  voices  on  water! 
— that  burn  it  with  mad-fire. 

"How  surely  come  the  wild,  sweet  mean 
ings  of  the  outer  air  into  the  depths  of 
the  half-conscious  soul! — but  burn  it  with 
mad-fire. 

"How  madly  happy  is  the  half-conscious 
soul  in  still  hours  at  sight  of  a  solitary 
pine-tree  upon  the  mountain-top! — that 
burns  it  with  mad-fire. 

"How  tenderly  comes  Truth  to  the  half- 
conscious  soul  in  the  dead  watches  of  the 
night! — but  burns  it  with  mad-fire. 

"Life  is  vivid,  alert,  telling  to  the  half- 
conscious  soul,"  said  Annabel  Lee. 

"You,"  said  Annabel  Lee,  "with  your 
half-conscious  soul,  when  you  sit  where 
the  gray  waves  wash  the  sea-wall  at  high- 
tide,  when  you  sit  listening  with  your 
head  bent  and  your  hands  dead  cold,  you 
think  you  realize  your  life — you  think  you 
know  its  hardness — you  think  you  have 


42  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

measured  the  cruelty  they  will  give  you; 
but  you  do  not  know.  You  know  but 
half — you  weep  for  the  other  half,  though 
it  be  horror. 

"Still,  though  you  are  but  half-conscious, 
though  you  weep  for  the  other  half,  when 
you  sit  listening  with  your  head  bent  and 
your  hands  dead  cold,  where  the  gray 
waves  wash  the  sea-wall  at  high-tide — yet 
you  know  some  of  each  one  of  the  things 
that  are  around  you. 

"Wonderful  in  conception  is  the  half- 
conscious  soul,"  said  Annabel  Lee. 

I  looked  hard  at  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee.  Was  she  teasing  me?  Was  she 
laughing  at  me?  For  she  does  tease  me 
and  she  does  laugh  at  me.  And  was  she 
at  either  of  these  pastimes,  with  all  this 
about  a  half-conscious  soul? 

But  here  again  she  left  me  ignorant  of 
her  thought,  and  there  is  no  way  of 
knowing. 


IP1I 

THE    YOUNG-BOOKS    OF   TROWBRIDGE 

THERE  are  two  writers,  among  them 
all,   to   whom    I    owe   thanks    for 
countless  hours  of  complete  pleas 
ure.     Not  the  pleasure  that  stirs  and  fires 
one,  but  the  pleasure  which  enters  into 
the  entire  personality,  and  rests  and  satis 
fies  a  common,  unstrained  mind.     'Tis  the 
same  pleasure  that  comes  with  eating  all 
by   myself — eating    peaches   and   a    fine, 
tiny  lamb  chop  in  the  middle  of  the  day. 
One  of  these  two  writers  is  J.  T.  Trow- 
bridge  who  has  writtten  young-books. 

Often  I  have  thought,  Life  would  be 
different,  and  duller  colored,  and  less 
thickly  sprinkled  with  marigolds-and- 
cream,  had  I  never  known  my  Trow- 
bridge. 

43 


44  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

Often  I  have  thanked  the  happy  fate 
that  put  into  my  hands  my  first  young- 
book  of  Trowbridge.  'Twas  when  I  was 
fourteen — one  day  in  October,  when  I 
lived  in  a  flat,  windy  town  that  was  named 
Great  Falls,  in  Montana.  Since  that  time 
I  have  never  been  without  the  young- 
books  of  J.  T.  Trowbridge.  There  have 
but  seven  years  passed  since  then,  but 
when  seven  years  more,  and  seven  years 
again,  up  to  threescore,  have  gone,  I  still 
shall  spend  one-half  my  rest-hours,  my 
pleasure-hours,  my  loosely-comfortable, 
unstrained  hours  with  the  young-books 
of  Trowbridge. 

When  I  go  to  a  theater  I  enjoy  it  thor 
oughly.  A  theater  is  a  good  thing,  and 
the  actor  is  a  stunning  person — but  how 
eagerly  and  gladly  I  come  back  into  my 
own  room  where  there  is  a  faithful,  little, 
tan  deer  standing  waiting,  all  so  pathetic 
and  sweet,  upon  the  desk. 


THE   YOUNG-BOOKS   OF   TROWBRIDGE     45 

When  I  go  out  into  two  crowded  rooms 
among  some  fascinating  persons  that  I 
have  heard  of  before — women  with  fine- 
wrought  gowns — I  like  that,  too,  and  I 
wouldn't  have  missed  it — but  how  utterly 
restful  and  adorable  it  is  to  come  back  to 
my  own  room  where  there  is  my  comfort 
able  quiet  friend  in  a  rusty  black  flannel 
frock,  sitting  waiting — and  her  hands 
so  soft  and  good  to  feel. 

When  I  read  gold  treasures  of  liter 
ature — Vergil,  it  may  be,  or  a  Browning, 
or  Kipling — I  am  enchanted  and  en 
thralled.  I  marvel  at  these  people  and 
how  they  can  write.  I  think  how  marvel 
ous  is.  writing,  at  last— but  how  gladly 
and  thankfully,  after  two  hours  or  three, 
I  return  back  to  these  my  young-books  of 
Trowbridge. 

They  are  about  people  living  on  farms, 
and  they  are  written  so  that  you  know 
that  red-root  grows  among  wheat-spears, 


46  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

and  must  be  weeded  out,  and  that  the 
farmer's  boys  have  to  milk  the  cows 
mornings  before  breakfast  and  evenings 
after  supper.  For  they  have  supper  in 
the  Trowbridge  books — and  it  is  even  at 
tractive  and  tastes  good. 

When  the  lads  go  to  gather  kelp  to 
spread  on  the  land,  and  are  gone  for  the 
day  by  the  seashore,  they  eat  roasted  ears 
of  corn,  and  cold-boiled  eggs,  and  bread- 
and-butter,  and  three  bottles  of  spruce 
beer — and  if  you  really  know  the  Trow 
bridge  books  you  can  eat  of  these  with 
them,  and  with  a  wonderful  appetite. 

When  a  slim  boy  of  sixteen  goes  to 
hunt  for  his  uncle's  horse  that  had  been 
stolen  in  the  night  (because  the  boy  left 
the  stable  door  unlocked),  along  pleasant 
country  roads  and  smiling  farms  in  Mas 
sachusetts — if  you  really  know  the  Trow 
bridge  books — the  slim  boy  of  sixteen  is 
not  more  anxious  to  find  the  horse  than 


THE   YOUNG-BOOKS   OF   TROWBRIDGE     47 

you  are.  When  the  boy  and  the  reader 
first  start  after  the  horse  they  are  far  too 
wretched  and  anxious  to  eat — for  the 
crabbed  uncle  told  them  they  needn't 
come  back  to  the  farm  without  that 
horse.  But  long  before  noon  they  are 
glad  enough  that  they  have  a  few  doubled 
slices  of  buttered  bread  to  eat  as  they  go. 
When  at  last  they  come  upon  the  horse 
calmly  feeding  under  a  cattle-shed  at  a 
county  fair  twenty  miles  away,  they  are 
quite  hungry,  and  in  their  joy  they  pur 
chase  a  wedge  of  pie  and  some  oyster 
crackers,  so  that  they  needn't  be  out  of 
sight  of  the  horse  while  they  eat.  And 
the  reader — if  he  really  knows  the  Trow- 
bridge  books — would  fain  stop  here,  for 
there  is  trouble  ahead  of  him.  He  would 
fain — but  he  can  not.  He  must  go  on — 
he  must  even  come  in  crucial  contact  with 
Eli  Badger's  hickory  club — he  must  go 
with  the  boy  until  he  sees  him  and  the 


48  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

horse  at  last  safely  back  at  Uncle  Gray's 
farm,  the  horse  placidly  munching  oats  in 
his  own  stall,  and  the  boy  eating  supper 
once  more  with  appetite  unimpaired,  and 
the  crabbed  uncle  once  more  serene. 
And — if  you  know  Trowbridge's  books — 
you  can  eat,  too,  tranquilly. 

When  a  boy  is  left  alone  in  the  world 
by  the  death  of  his  aunt  and  starts  out  to 
find  his  uncle  in  Cincinnati — if  you  know 
Trowbridge's  books  —  you  prepare  for 
hardship  and  weariness,  but  still  occa 
sional  sandwiches  and  doughnuts  (but  not 
the  greasy  kind).  And  always  you  know 
there  must  be  a  haven  in  the  house  of  the 
uncle  in  Cincinnati.  Only — if  you  know 
the  Trowbridge  books — you  are  fearful 
when  you  get  to  the  uncle's  door,  and  you 
would  a  little  rather  the  boy  went  in  to 
meet  him  while  you  waited  outside. 
Trowbridge's  uncles  are  apt  to  be  so  sour 
as  to  heart,  and  so  bitter  as  to  tongue,  and 


THE    YOUNG-BOOKS    OF   TROWBRIDGE     49 

so  sarcastic  in  their  remarks  relating  to 
boys  who  come  in  from  the  country  to  the 
city  in  order  that  they — the  uncles — may 
have  the  privilege  of  supporting  them. 
Though  you  know — if  you  know  the  Trow- 
bridge  books — that  Trowbridge's  boys 
never  come  into  the  city  for  that  purpose. 
The  heavy-tempered  uncles,  too,  are 
made  aware  of  this  before  long,  and 
change  the  tenor  of  their  remarks  accord 
ingly — and  after  some  just  pride  on  the 
part  of  the  nephews,  all  goes  well. 
Whereupon  your  feeling  of  satisfaction  is 
more  than  that  of  the  boy,  of  the  uncle, 
of  Trowbridge  himself. 

But  these  roasted  ears  of  corn  and  cold- 
boiled  eggs  are  among  the  lesser  delights 
of  the  young-books  of  Trowbridge.  The 
most  fascinating  things  in  them  are  the 
conversations.  They  are  so  real  that  you 
hear  the  voices  and  see  the  expressions  of 
the  faces. 


5O  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

Trowbridge  is  one  of  the  kind  that 
listens  twice  and  thrice  to  persons  talk 
ing,  so  that  he  hears  the  key-note  and  the 
detail,  and  his  pen  is  of  the  kind  that  can 
write  what  he  hears.  It  is  never  too 
much,  never  too  little;  it  is  not  noticeable 
at  all,  because  it  is  all  harmony. 

It  is  entirely  and  utterly  common. 

And  it  is  real. 

In  the  young-books  of  Trowbridge,  and 
nowhere  else,  I  have  heard  boys  talking 
together  so  that  I  knew  how  their  faces 
looked,  and  how  carelessly  and  loosely 
their  various  collars  were  worn,  and  their 
dubious  hats.  I  have  heard  a  grasping, 
grouty  old  man  pound  on  the  kitchen 
floor  with  his  horn-headed  cane — he  had 
come  over  while  the  family  were  at  break 
fast  to  inform  them  that  their  dog  had 
killed  five  of  his  sheep,  and  to  demand 
the  dog's  life.  I  have  heard  the  lessons 
and  other  things  they  said  in  a  country 


THE    YOUNG-BOOKS    OF   TROWBRIDGE      51 

school-room  sixty  years  ago,  where  boys 
were  sometimes  obliged,  for  punishment, 
to  sit  on  nothing  against  the  door.  I 
have  heard  the  extreme  discontent  in  the 
voice  of  another  grouty,  grasping  farmer 
when  it  became  evident  to  him  that  he 
would  be  obliged  to  give  up  a  horse  that 
had  been  stolen  before  he  bought  him. 
But  here  I  must  quote,  as  nearly  correctly 
as  I  can  without  the  book: 

"  'And  sold  him  to  this  Mr.  Badger' 
(said  Kit)  'for  seventy  dollars.' 

'  'Seventy  gim-cracks!'  exclaimed  Uncle 
Gray,  aghast.  'I  should  think  any  fool 
might  know  he's  worth  more  than  that.' 

"He  was  thinking  of  Brunlow,  but  Eli 
applied  the  remark  to  himself. 

'  'I  did  know  it,'  he  growled.  'That's 
why  I  bought  him.  And  mighty  glad  I 
am  now  I  didn't  pay  more.' 

'  'Sartin!'  replied  Uncle  Gray;  'but 
didn't  it  occur  to  you  't  no  honest  man 


52  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

would  want  to  sell  an  honest  boss  like 
that  for  any  such  sum?' 

11  'I  didn't  know  it,'  said  EH,  groutily. 
'He  told  a  pooty  straight  story.  I  got 
took  in,  that's  all.' 

"Took  in!'  repeated  Uncle  Gray.  'I 
should  say,  took  in!  I  know  the  rogue 
and  I'm  amazed  that  any  man  with  com 
mon  sense  and  eyes  in  his  head  shouldn't 
'a'  seen  through  him  at  once/ 

"  'Maybe  I  ain't  got  common  sense,  and 
maybe  I  ain't  got  eyes  in  my  head,'  said 
Eli,  with  a  dull  fire  in  the  place  where 
eyes  should  have  been  if  he  had  had  any. 
'But  I  didn't  expect  this/ 

"Kit  hastened  to  interpose  between  the 
two  men/' 

Always  I  have  been  sorry  that  the  boy 
interposed  just  there. 

I  have  read  the  book  surely  seven-and- 
seventy  times.  Each  time  this  talk  over 
the  horse  comes  exceeding  pungent  to  my 


THE   YOUNG-BOOKS    OF   TROWBRIDGE      53 

ears.  How  impossible  it  is  to  weary  of 
Trowbridge,  because  there  is  no  effort  in 
the  writing,  and  no  effort  in  the  reading, 
and  because  of  a  deep-reaching,  never- 
failing  sense  of  humor. 

How  flat  seem  these  words! 

The  young-books  of  Trowbridge  can 
not  be  set  down  in  words.  What  with  the 
simplicity,  what  with  the  quality  of  nat 
uralness,  what  with  a  delicate  tender 
ness  for  all  human  things,  what  with  the 
rare,  rare  quality  of  commonness  that 
is  satisfying  and  quieting  as  the  vis 
ion  of  a  little  green  radish-bed,  what  with 
an  inner  sympathy  between  Trowbridge 
and  his  characters  and,  above  all,  an  inner 
sympathy  with  his  readers,  what  with 
Truth  itself  and  the  sweet  gift  of  portray 
ing  the  sunshiny  days  as  they  are — why 
talk  of  Trowbridge? 

Is  it  not  all  there  written? 

Can  one  not  read  and  rest  in  it? 


\D1fH1F 

"GIVE   ME   THREE   GRAINS   OF   CORN, 

MOTHER!" 

,"  SAID  my  friend  Annabel  Lee, 
"I  can't  really  say  that  I  care  for 
Trowbridge.     All  that  you  have 
said  is  true  enough,  but  he  fails  to  inter 
est  me." 

"What  do  you  like  in  literature?"  I 
asked,  regarding  her  with  interest,  for  I 
had  never  heard  her  say.  It  must  need 
be  something  characteristic  of  herself. 

"I  like  strength,  and  I  like  simplicity, 
and  I  like  emotion,  and  I  like  vital  things 
always.  And  I  like  poetry  rather  than 
prose.  Just  now,"  said  Annabel  Lee,  "I 
am  thinking  of  an  old-fashioned  bit  of 
verse  that  to  me  is  all  that  a  poem  need 
be.  To  have  written  it  is  to  have  done 
55 


56  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

enough  in  the  way  of  writing,  because  it's 
real — like  your  Trowbridge." 

"Oh,  will  you  repeat  it  for  me!"  I  said. 

"It  is  called,  'Give  Me  Three  Grains  of 
Corn,  Mother.'  It  is  of  a  famine  in  Ire 
land  a  great  many  years  ago — a  lad  and 
his  mother  starving." 

And  then  she  went  on: 

"  'Give  me  three  grains  of  corn,  mother, 

Give  me  three  grains  of  corn, 
'Twill  keep  the  little  life  I  have 

Till  the  coming  of  the  morn. 
I  am  dying  of  hunger  and  cold,  mother, 

Dying  of  hunger  and  cold, 
And  half  the  agony  of  such  a  death 

My  lips  have  never  told. 

"  'It   has   gnawed    like    a   wolf   at   my   heart, 

mother, 

A  wolf  that  is  fierce  for  blood, 
All  the  livelong  day  and  the  night,  beside — 
Gnawing  for  lack  of  food. 


"GIVE   ME  THREE   GRAINS   OF   CORN"     57 

I  dreamed  of  bread  in  my  sleep,  mother, 
And  the  sight  was  heaven  to  see — 

I  awoke  with  an  eager,  famishing  lip, 
But  you  had  no  bread  for  me. 


"  'How  could  I  look  to  you,  mother, 

How  could  I  look  to  you 
For  bread  to  give  to  your  starving  boy, 

When  you  were  starving,  too? 
For  I  read  the  famine  in  your  cheek 

And  in  your  eye  so  wild, 
And  I  felt  it  in  your  bony  hand, 

As  you  laid  it  on  your  child. 


"  'The  queen  has  lands  and  gold,  mother, 

The  queen  has  lands  and  gold, 
While  you  are  forced  to  your  empty  breast 

A  skeleton  babe  to  hold — 
A  babe  that  is  dying  of  want,  mother, 

As  I  am  dying  now, 
With  a  ghastly  look  in  its  sunken  eye 

And  the  famine  upon  its  brow. 


58  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

1  'What  has  poor  Ireland  done,  mother, 

What  has  poor  Ireland  done, 
That  the  world  looks  on  and  sees  us  die, 

Perishing  one  by  one? 
Do  the  men  of  England  care  not,  mother, 

The  great  men  and  the  high, 
For  the  suffering  sons  of  Erin's  isle, — 

Whether  they  live  or  die? 

1  There's  many  a  brave  heart  here,  motner, 

Dying  of  want  and  cold, 
While  only  across  the  channel,  mother, 

Are  many  that  roll  in  gold. 
There    are    great    and    proud    men    there, 

mother, 

With  wondrous  wealth  to  view, 
And   the   bread   they   fling   to    their    dogs 

to-night 
Would  bring  life  to  me  and  you. 

"  'Come  nearer  to  my  side,  mother, 

Come  nearer  to  my  side, 
And  hold  me  fondly,  as  you  held 
My  father  when  he  died. 


"GIVE   ME   THREE   GRAINS    OF   CORN"    59 

Quick,  for  I  can  not  see  you,  mother, 

My  breath  is  almost  gone. 
Mother,  dear  mother,  ere  I  die, 

Give  me  three  grains  of  corn!1 


"What  do  you  think,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee,  "is  it  not  full  of  power  and 
poetry  and  pathos?" 

"Yes,  it  could  not  in  itself  be  better,"  I 
replied.  "And  it  has  the  simplicity." 

"And  pretends  nothing,"  said  Annabel 
Lee. 

"And  who  wrote  it?"  I  asked. 

"Oh,  some  forgotten  Englishwoman," 
said  Annabel  Lee.  "I  believe  her  name 
was  Edwards.  She  perhaps  wrote  a 
poem,  now  and  then,  and  died." 

"And  are  the  poems  forgotten,  also?"  I 
inquired. 

"Yes,  forgotten,  except  by  a  few.  But 
when  they  remember  them,  they  remem 
ber  them  long." 


60  MY  FRIEND  ANNABEL  LEE 

"Then  which  is  better,  to  be  remem 
bered,  and  remembered  shortly,  by  the 
multitudes;  or  to  be  forgot  by  the  multi 
tudes  and  remembered  long  by  the  one  or 
two?" 

"It  is  incomparably  better  to  be  remem 
bered  long  by  the  one  or  two,"  said  Anna 
bel  Lee.  "To  be  forgotten  by  any  one  or 
anything  that  once  remembered  you  is 
sorely  bitter  to  the  heart." 


RELATIVE 

DO  YOU  think,  Annabel  Lee,"  I  said 
to  her  on  a  day  that  I  felt  de 
pressed,  "that  all  things  must 
really  be  relative,  and  that  those  which 
are  not  now  properly  relative  will  event 
ually  become  so,  though  it  gives  them 
acute  anguish?" 

The  face  of  Annabel  Lee  was  placid, 
and  also  the  sea.  The  one  glanced  down 
upon  me  from  the  shelf,  and  the  other 
spread  away  into  the  distance. 

Were  that  face  and  that  sea  relative? 
Surely  they  could  not  be,  since  those  two 
things  in  their  very  nature  might  go  un- 
governed.  Do  not  universal  laws,  in  ex 
treme  moments,  give  way? 

"Relative!"  said  Annabel  Lee.     "Noth- 
61 


62  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

ing  is  relative.  I  tell  you  nothing  is 
relative.  I  am  come  out  of  Japan.  In 
Japan,  when  I  was  very  new  to  every 
thing,  there  was  an  ugly  frog-eyed  woman 
who  washed  me  and  anointed  me  and 
dressed  me  in  silk,  the  while  she  pinched 
my  little  white  arms  cruelly,  so  that  my 
little  red  mouth  writhed  with  the  pain. 
Also  the  frog-eyed  woman  looked  into 
my  suffering  young  eyes  with  her  ugly 
frog-eyes  so  that  my  tiny  young  soul  was 
prodded  as  with  brad-nails.  The  frog- 
eyed  woman  did  these  things  to  hurt  me — 
she  hated  me  for  being  one  of  the  very 
lovely  creatures  in  Japan.  She  was  a 
vile,  ugly  wretch. 

"That  was  not  relative.  I  tell  you 
that  was  not  relative,"  said  Annabel 
Lee. 

"If  I  had  been  an  awkward,  overgrown, 
bloodless  animal  and  that  frog-eyed  wom 
an  had  pinched  my  little  white  arms — 


RELATIVE  63 

still  she  would  have  been  a  vile,  ugly 
wretch. 

"If  I  had  been  a  vicious  spirit  and  that 
frog-eyed  woman  had  looked  into  my 
vicious  eyes  with  her  ugly  frog-eyes — 
still  she  would  have  been  a  vile,  ugly 
wretch. 

"If  I  had  been  a  hateful  little  thing,  in 
stead  of  a  gently-bred,  gently-living, 
pitiful-to-the-poor  maiden,  and  that  frog- 
eyed  woman  had  hated  me  with  all  her 
frog-heart — still  she  would  have  been  a 
vile,  ugly  wretch. 

"If  that  frog-eyed  woman  had  stood 
alone  in  Japan  with  no  human  being  to 
compare  her  to  —  still  the  frog-eyed 
woman  would  have  been  a  vile,  ugly 
wretch. 

"She  has  left  her  horrid  frog-mark  on 
my  fair  soul.  Not  anything  beneath  the 
worshiped  sun  can  ever  blot  out  the  hor 
rid  frog-mark  from  my  fair  soul.  A  thou- 


64  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

sand  curses  on  the  ugly,  frog-eyed  woman," 
said  Annabel  Lee,  tranquilly. 

"Then  that,  for  one  thing,  is  not  rel 
ative,"  I  said.  "But  perhaps  that  is 
because  of  the  power  and  the  depth  of 
your  eyes  and  your  fair  soul.  Where 
there  are  no  eyes  and  no  fair  souls — at 
least  where  the  eyes  and  the  fair  souls 
can  not  be  considered  as  themselves,  but 
only  as  things  without  feeling  for  life — 
then  are  not  things  relative?" 

"Nothing  is  relative,"  said  Annabel  Lee. 
"If  your  dog's  splendid  fur  coat  is  full  of 
fleas  and  you  caress  your  dog  with  your 
hands,  then  presently  you  may  acquire 
numbers  of  the  fleas.  You  love  the  dog, 
but  you  do  not  love  the  fleas.  You  for 
give  the  fleas  for  the  love  of  the  dog, 
though  you  hate  them  no  less.  So  then 
that  is  not  relative.  If  that  were  relative 
you  would  love  the  fleas  a  little  for  the 
same  reason  that  you  forgive  them:  for 


RELATIVE  65 

love  of  your  dog.  Forgiveness  is  a  nega 
tive  quality  and  can  have  no  bearing  on 
your  attitude  toward  the  fleas." 

Having  said  this,  Annabel  Lee  gazed 
placidly  over  my  head  at  the  sea. 

When  her  mood  is  thus  tranquil,  she 
talks  graciously  and  evenly  and  positively, 
and  is  beautiful  to  look  at. 

My  mind  was  now  in  much  confusion 
upon  the  subject  in  question.  But  I  felt 
that  I  must  know  all  that  Annabel  Lee 
thought  about  it. 

"What  would  you  say,  Annabel  Lee," 
said  I,  "to  a  case  like  this:  If  a  soul  were 
at  variance  with  everything  that  touches 
it,  everything  that  makes  life,  so  that  it 
must  struggle  through  the  long  nights 
and  long  days  with  bitterness,  is  not  that 
because  the  soul  has  no  sense  of  propor 
tion,  and  has  not  made  itself  properly 
relative  to  each  and  everything  that  is? — 
relative,  so  that  when  one  hard  thing 


66  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

touches  it,  simultaneously  one  soft  thing 
will  touch  it;  or  when  it  mourns  for  dead 
days,  simultaneously  it  rejoices  for  live 
ones;  or  when  its  best-loved  gives  it  a 
deep  wound,  simultaneously  its  best  enemy 
gives  it  vivid  pleasure." 

"Nothing  is  relative,"  again  said  Anna 
bel  Lee.  "Nothing  can  be  relative.  Noth 
ing  need  be  relative.  If  a  soul  is  wearing 
itself  to  small  shreds  by  struggling  days 
and  nights,  that  is  a  matter  relating  pecu 
liarly  to  the  soul,  and  to  nothing  else, 
nothing  else.  If  a  soul  is  wearing  itself  to 
small  shreds  by  struggling,  the  more  fool 
it.  It  is  struggling  because  of  things 
that  would  never,  never  struggle  because 
of  it.  In  truth,  not  one  of  them  would 
move  itself  one  millionth  of  an  inch  be 
cause  of  so  paltry  a  thing  as  a  soul." 

I  looked  at  Annabel  Lee,  her  hair,  her 
hands  and  her  eyes.  As  I  looked,  I  was 
reminded  of  the  word  "eternity." 


RELATIVE  67 

A  human  being  is  a  quite  wonderful 
thing,  truly  —  and  great  —  there's  none 
greater. 

Annabel  Lee  is  a  person  who  always 
says  truth,  for,  for  her,  there  is  nothing 
else  to  say. 

She  has  reached  that  marvelous  point 
where  a  human  being  expects  nothing. 

"If  the  days  of  a  life,  Annabel  Lee,"  I 
said,  "are  made  bright  because  of  two 
other  lives  that  are  dear  to  it,  and  if  the 
life  happens  upon  a  day  when  the  thought 
of  the  two  whom  it  loves  makes  its  own 
heart  like  lead,  then  what  can  there  be  to 
smooth  away  its  weariness,  in  heaven 
above,  in  the  earth  beneath,  or  in  the 
waters  under  the  earth?" 

"Foolish  life,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee.  "There  is  no  pain  in  Japan  like 
what  comes  of  loving  some  one  or  some 
thing.  And  if  the  some  one  or  the  some 
thing  is  the  only  thing  the  life  can  call  its 


68  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

own,  then  woe  to  it.  The  things  it  needs 
are  three:  a  Lodging  Place  in  heaven 
above;  a  Bit  of  Hardness  in  the  earth 
beneath;  a  Last  Resort  in  the  waters 
under  the  earth,  These  three — but  no 
life  has  ever  had  them." 

"In  the  end/'  I  said,  "when  all  wide 
roadways  come  together,  and  all  heavy 
hearts  are  alert  to  know  what  will  hap 
pen,  then  will  there  not  indeed  be  one 
grand  adjustment,  and  life  and  all  become 
at  once  magnificently  relative?" 

"Never;  it  can't  be  so.  Nothing  is 
relative,"  said  Annabel  Lee,  on  a  day  that 
I  felt  depressed. 


MINNIE    MADDERN    FISKE 

TO-DAY  my  friend  Annabel  Lee  and 
I  went  to  the  theater  and  we  saw  a 
wonderful  and  fascinating  woman 
with  long  dark-red  hair  upon  the  stage. 
She  is  attractive,  that  red-haired  woman 
— adorably  attractive.    And  she  reminds 
one  of  many  things. 

Annabel  Lee  was  greatly  interested  in 
her  acting,  and  was  charmed  with  herself 
— and  so  was  I. 

"Do  you  suppose  she  finds  life  very 
delightful?"  I  said  to  my  friend. 

"I  don't  suppose,"  my  friend  replied, 
"she  is  of  the  sort  that  considers  whether 
or  not  life  is  delightful.  Probably  her 
work  is  hard  enough  to  keep  her  out  of 
mischief  of  any  kind." 
69 


70  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

Whereupon  we  both  fell  to  thinking 
how  fortunate  are  they  whose  work  is 
hard  enough  to  keep  them  out  of  mischief 
of  any  kind. 

"But  there  must  be,"  I  said,  "some 
months,  perhaps  in  the  summer,  when 
she  doesn't  work.  I  have  heard  that 
some  actors  take  houses  among  the 
mountains  and  do  their  own  housework 
for  recreation." 

"I,"  said  Annabel  Lee,  can  not  quite 
imagine  this  woman  with  the  red  hair 
making  bread  and  scouring  pans  and 
kettles  for  pleasure.  But  very  likely  she 
sometimes  goes  into  the  country  for  vaca 
tions,  and  I  can  fancy  her  doing  the  vari 
ous  small  enjoyable  things  that  celebrities 
can  afford  to  do — like  wading  barefooted 
in  a  narrow  brooklet,  or  swinging  high 
and  recklessly  in  a  barrel-stave  ham 
mock:' 

"And  since  she  is  so  adorable  on  the 


MINNIE    MADDERN    FISKE  fl 

stage,"  I  exclaimed,  "how  altogether 
enchanting  she  would  be  wading  in  the 
brooklet  or  swinging  in  the  barrel-stave 
hammock — she  with  the  long,  red  hair! 
Perhaps  it  would  even  be  braided  down 
her  back  in  two  long  tails." 

It  is  a  picture  that  haunts  me — Mrs. 
Fiske  in  the  midst  of  her  vacation  doing 
the  small  enjoyable  things. 

"Of  course,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "we  don't  know  that  she  doesn't 
spend  her  vacations  in  a  fine,  conven 
tional,  stupid  yacht,  or  at  some  magnifi 
cent,  insipid  American  or  English  country 
house.  We  can  only  give  her  the  benefit 
of  the  doubt." 

"Yes,  the  benefit  of  the  doubt,"  I 
replied. 

How  fascinating  she  was,  to  be  sure, 
with  her  personality  merged  in  that  of 
Mary  Magdalene! 

The  Magdalene  is  no  longer  a  shadowy 


72  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

ideal  with  a  somewhat  buxom  body, 
scantily  draped,  with  indefinite  hair  and 
with  the  lifeless  beauty  that  the  old 
masters  paint.  Nor  is  she  quite  the 
woman  of  the  scriptures  who  is  presented 
to  one's  mind  without  that  quality  which 
is  called  local  coloring,  and  with  too  much 
of  the  quality  that  is  ever  present  with 
the  women  in  the  scriptures — a  some 
thing  between  uncleanness  and  final  com 
plete  redemption. 

No,  Mary  Magdalene  is  Mrs.  Fiske,  a 
slight  woman  still  in  the  last  throes  of 
youth,  with  two  shoulders  which  move 
impatiently,  expressing  indescribable  emo 
tions  of  aliveness  and  two  lips  which 
perform  their  office  —  that  of  coloring, 
bewitching,  torturing,  perfuming,  anoint 
ing  the  words  that  come  out  of  them. 
Apart  from  these  lips,  Mary  Magdalene's 
face  has  a  wonderfully  round  and  childish 
look,  and  her  two  round  eyes  at  first  sight 


MINNIE    MADDERN    FISKE  73 

give  one  an  idea  of  positive  innocence. 
In  the  Magdalene's  face — and  in  that  of 
an  actor  of  Mrs.  Fiske's  range — these  are 
a  beautifully  delicate  incongruity. 

And  my  friend  Annabel  Lee  has  told 
me  that  the  strongest  things  are  the  deli 
cate  incongruities — the  strongest  in  all 
this  wide  world.  Because  they  make  you 
consider — and  considering,  you  wait. 

With  such  a  pair  of  round,  innocent 
eyes  of  some  grayish  color — who  can 
blame  Mary  Magdalene? 

In  the  latter  acts  of  the  play  these  eyes 
go  one  step  farther  than  innocence:  they 
do  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness. 
And,  ah,  dear  heaven  (you  thought  to 
yourself),  how  well  they  did  it!  To 
hunger  and  thirst  after  righteousness — 
not  herself,  but  her  eyes.  That  was  this 
Mary  Magdalene's  art. 

This  Mary  Magdalene,  though  she  is 
indeed  in  the  last  throes  of  youth — with- 


74  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

out  reference  to  the  years  she  may  know 
— has  yet  beneath  her  chin  a  very  charm 
ing  roundness  of  flesh  which  one  day 
obviously  will  become  a  double  chin. 
Just  now  it  is  enchanting.  There  are 
feminine  children  of  seven  and  eight 
with  round  faces,  who  have  just  that  full 
ness  beneath  the  chin,  and  beneath  the 
chin  of  Mary  Magdalene — and  added  to 
her  eyes — it  carries  on  the  idea  of  inno 
cence  and  inexperience  to  a  rare  good 
degree.  Any  other  woman  actor  would 
have  long  since  massaged  this  fullness 
away.  Forsooth,  perhaps  this  is  the  one 
woman  actor  who  could  wear  such  a  thing 
with  beauty. 

Mary  Magdalene's  hair  in  its  deep 
redness  is  scornful  and  aggressive  in  the 
first  acts  of  the  play.  In  the  latter  acts  it 
assumes  a  marvelous  patheticness.  And, 
if  you  like,  there  is  a  world  of  patheticness 
in  red  hair. 


MINNIE   MADDERN   FISKE  75 

If  Mary  Magdalene's  hair  were  of  a 
different  color — if  the  bronze  shadows 
were  yellow,  or  gray,  or  black,  or  brown 
shadows — her  lips  and  her  shoulders  were 
in  vain. 

On  the  stage  Mary  Magdalene  stands 
with  her  back  to  her  audience  —  she 
stands,  calm  and  placid,  for  three  or  four 
minutes  before  the  rising  and  falling 
curtain,  graciously  permitting  all  to 
admire  and  feast  their  eyes  upon  the  red 
of  her  hair. 

"She  knows,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "that  she  can  make  her  face  be 
witching — and  she  knows  also  that  her 
hair  is  bewitching  without  being  so  made. 
And  she  chooses  that  the  world  at  large 
shall  know  it,  too." 

She  has  will-power,  has  Mary  Magda 
lene.  It  is  her  will,  her  strength,  her 
concentration  of  all  her  power  to  herself 
that  makes  her  thus  bewitching  —  and 


76  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

that  seduces  the  brains  of  those  who  sit 
watching  her  as  she  moves  upon  the 
stage. 

She  controls  all  her  mental  and  phys 
ical  features  with  metallic  precision  — 
except  her  hair,  and  that  she  leaves 
uncontrolled  to  do  its  own  work.  It  does 
its  work  well. 

She  has  cultivated  that  mobileness  of 
her  lips,  probably  with  hard  work  and 
infinite  patience— and  she  makes  them 
damp  and  brilliant  with  rouge.  She  rubs 
the  soft,  thick  skin  of  her  face  with  layers 
of  grease.  She  loads  her  two  white  arms 
with  limitless  powder.  And  the  two 
childish  eyes  are  exceeding  heavy-laden 
as  to  lid  and  lash  with  black  crayon.  One 
experiences  a  revulsion  as  one  contem 
plates  them  through  a  glass.  Her  voice 
in  the  days  of  her  youth  had  drilled  into 
it  the  power  to  thrill  and  vibrate,  and  to 
become  exquisitely  tender  upon  occasion, 


MINNIE    MADDERN    FISKE  77 

and  now  it  does  the  bidding  of  its  owner 
with  docility  and  skill.  Since  its  owner 
has  forcefulness  and  a  power  of  selfish 
concentration,  the  voice  is  mostly  mag 
netic  and  cold  and  strong.  It  is  magnetic 
and  cold  and  strong  and  contemptuous 
when  its  owner  says,  "My  curse  upon 
you!"  When  its  owner's  eyes  do  hunger 
and  thirst  after  righteousness  the  voice 
brings  a  miserable,  anguished  feeling  to 
the  throats  of  those  who  sit  listening. 
Every  emotion  that  the  voice  betrays  is 
transmitted  to  the  seduced  brains  of  those 
who  sit  listening.  The  red-haired  woman 
works  her  audience  up  to  some  tortur 
ing  pitches — the  while  herself  blandly  and 
cold-bloodedly  earning  an  honest  liveli 
hood  by  the  sweat  of  her  brow. 

Forsooth,  it's  always  so. 

If  all  the  red-haired  woman's  scorn  and 
anguish  were  real,  the  audience  would  sit 
unmoved.  If  the  red-haired  woman's 


78  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

scorn  and  anguish  were  real  it  would 
strike  inward — instead  of  outward  toward 
the  audience — and  the  audience  would 
not  know.  If  the  red-haired  woman's 
scorn  and  anguish  were  real,  it  would  not 
seem  real  and  would  be  very  uninter 
esting.  And  that  very  likely  is  the  reason 
why  the  scorn  and  anguish  of  other  red- 
haired  women — and  of  black-haired,  and 
brown-haired,  and  yellow-haired,  and 
gray-haired,  and  pale-haired  women,  who 
are  not  working  on  the  stage — is  so  unin 
teresting  and  ineffectual.  It  is  real,  and 
they  can  not  act  it  out,  and  so  it  doesn't 
seem  real — and  you  don't  have  to  pay 
money  to  see  it  done. 

To  make  it  seem  real  they  must  need 
go  at  it  cold-bloodedly,  and  work  it  up, 
and  charge  you  a  round  price  for  it. 

Mary  Magdalene  isn't  here  to  do  this, 
but  Mrs.  Fiske  takes  her  place  and  does 
it  for  her. 


MINNIE    MADDERN    FISKE  79 

She  does  it  exquisitely  well. 

Could  Mary  Magdalene  herself — she  of 
the  Bible — be  among  those  who  sit  watch 
ing,  she  would  surely  marvel  and  admire. 

Meanwhile,  for  myself,  I  have  two  vis 
ions  of  this  Mary  Magdalene. 

One — in  one  of  the  acts  wherein  her 
eyes  do  hunger  and  thirst  after  right 
eousness — when  she  sits  before  a  small 
table  and  lifts  her  pathetic,  sweet  voice 
with  the  words,  "When  the  dawn  breaks, 
and  the  darkness  shall  flee  away";  and 
then  she  stands  and  the  red  hair  is 
equally  pathetic  and  twofold  bewitching, 
and  she  says  again,  "When  the  dawn 
breaks,  and  the  darkness  shall  flee  away." 
And  the  other  vision  is  of  her  in  the 
country  in  the  midst  of  a  summer  day, 
under  a  summer  sky,  swinging  high  and 
recklessly  in  a  barrel-stave  hammock. 


fl 


LIKE    A   STONE    WALL 

MY  FRIEND  Annabel  Lee  has  told 
me  there  are  bitterer  things  in 
store  for  me  than  I  have  known 
yet. 

Times  I  have  wondered  what  they 
can  be. 

"When  you  have  come  to  them,"  said 
my  friend  Annabel  Lee,"  they  will  be  so 
bitter  and  will  fit  so  well  into  your  life 
that  you  will  wonder  that  you  did  not 
always  know  about  them,  and  you  will 
wonder  why  you  did  not  always  have 
them." 

"The  bitterest  things  I  have  known 
yet,"  I  said,  "have  had  to  do  with  the 
varying  friendship  of  one  or  another 

whom  I  have  loved." 
81 


82  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

"Varying  friendship?"  said  Annabel 
Lee.  "But  friendship  does  not  vary." 

"No,  that  is  true,"  I  rejoined.  "I  mean 
the  varying  deception  I  have  had  from 
some  whom  I  have  loved." 

"In  time,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee, 
"you  will  love  more,  and  your  deceiving 
will  be  all  at  once,  and  bitterer.  It  will 
be  a  rich  experience." 

"Why  rich?"  I  inquired. 

"Because  from  it,"  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee,  "you  will  learn  to  not  see  too 
much,  to  not  start  out  with  faith,  in  fact, 
to  take  the  goods  that  the  gods  provide 
and  endeavor  to  be  thankful  for  them. 
Your  other  experiences  have  been  pov 
erty-stricken  in  that  respect.  They  leave 
you  with  rays  of  hope,  without  which  you 
would  be  better  off.  They  are  poor  and 
bitter.  What  is  to  come  will  be  rich  and 
bitterer.  Their  bitterness  will  prevent 
you  from  appreciating  the  richness  of 


LIKE   A   STONE    WALL  83 

them — until  perhaps  years  have  come 
and  taken  them  from  immediately  before 
your  eyes.  As  soon  as  they  are  where 
you  can  not  see  them,  you  can  consider 
them  and  appreciate  their  richness. " 

"Whatever  they  may  be,"  I  made 
answer,  "I  do  not  think  I  shall  ever  be 
able  to  appreciate  their  richness." 

"Then  you  will  be  very  ungrateful," 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

I  looked  hard  at  her — and  she  looked 
back  at  me.  There  are  times  when  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee  is  much  like  a  stone 
wall. 

"Yes,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee,  "if 
you  ever  feel  to  express  proper  grati 
tude  for  the  good  things  of  this  life,  be 
sure  that  you  express  your  gratitude 
for  the  right  thing.  Very  likely  you  will 
not  have  a  great  deal  of  gratitude,  and 
you  must  not  waste  any  of  it — but  what 
you  do  have  will  be  of  the  most  excellent 


84  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

quality.  For  it  will  accumulate,  and  the 
accumulation  will  all  go  to  quality.  And 
the  things  for  which  you  are  to  be  grate 
ful  are  the  bitternesses  you  have  known. 
If  you  have  had  it  in  mind  ever  to  give 
way  to  bursts  of  gratitude  for  this  air  that 
comes  from  off  the  salt  sea,  for  that  line 
of  pearls  and  violets  that  you  see  just 
above  the  horizon,  for  the  health  of  your 
body,  for  the  sleep  that  comes  to  you  at 
the  close  of  the  day,  for  any  of  those 
things,  then  get  rid  of  the  idea  at  once. 
Those  things  are  quite  well,  but  they  are 
not  really  given  to  you.  They  are  merely 
placed  where  any  one  can  reach  them 
with  little  effort.  The  kind  fates  don't 
care  whether  you  get  them  or  not.  Their 
responsibility  ends  when  they  leave  them 
there.  But  the  bitternesses  they  give  to 
each  person  separately.  They  give  you 
yours,  Mary  Mac  Lane,  for  your  very 
own.  Don't  say  they  never  think  of  you." 


LIKE   A   STONE   WALL  85 

"I've  no  intention  of  saying  it,"  said  I. 

"You  will  find,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee — without  noticing  my  interruption, 
and  with  curious  expressions  in  her  voice 
and  upon  her  two  red  lips — "you  will  find 
that  these  bitternesses  come  from  time  to 
time  in  your  life,  like  so  many  milestones. 
They  are  useful  as  such — for  of  course  you 
like  to  take  measurements  along  the  road, 
now  and  again,  to  see  what  progress  you 
have  made.  Along  some  parts  of  the 
road  you  will  find  your  progress  wonder 
ful.  If  you  are  appreciative  and  grateful, 
at  the  last  milestone  you  have  come  to 
thus  far  you  will  express  your  measure  of 
gratitude  to  the  kind  fates.  That  is,  no — " 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee,  "you  will 
not  do  this  at  the  milestone,  but  after  you 
have  passed  it  and  have  turned  a  corner, 
and  so  can  not  see  it  even  when  you  look 
back." 

"But    why    shall    I    express   gratitude 


86  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

there?"  I  inquired  in  a  tone  that  must 
have  been  rather  lifeless. 

"Why?"  repeated  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee.  " Because  you  will  have  grown  in 
strength  on  account  of  these  milestones; 
because  you  will  have  learned  to  take  all 
things  tranquilly.  Why,  after  the  very 
last  milestone  I  daresay  you  would  be 
able  to  sit  with  folded  hands  if  a  house 
were  burning  up  about  your  ears!" 

"Which  must  indeed  be  a  triumph," 
said  I. 

"A  triumph? — a  victory!"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee  —  with  still  more  curious 
expressions.  "And  the  victories  are  not 
what  this  world  sees" — which  reminded 
me  of  things  I  used  to  hear  in  Sunday- 
school  ever  so  many  years  ago.  "You 
remember  the  story  of  the  Ten  Virgins? 
Taking  the  story  literally,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee,  "the  lot  of  the  five  Foolish 
Virgins  is  much  the  more  fortunate. 


LIKE    A   STONE    WALL  87 

There  was  a  rare  measure  of  bitterness 
for  them  when  they  found  themselves 
without  oil  for  their  lamps  at  a  time  when 
oil  was  needed.  They  gained  infinitely 
more  than  they  lost.  As  for  the  five 
Wise  Virgins — well,  /  wouldn't  have  been 
one  of  them  under  any  circumstances," 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee.  "Fancy  the 
miserable,  mean,  mindless,  imagination- 
less,  selfish  natures  that  could  remain 
unmoved  by  the  simplicity  of  the  appeal, 
'Give  us  of  your  oil,  for  our  lamps  are 
gone  out.'  It  must  now,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee,  "be  a  hundred  times 
bitterer  for  them  to  think  of  being 
handed  down  in  endless  history  as 
demons  of  selfishness — and  they  are  now 
where  they  can  not,  presumably,  measure 
their  bitterness  by  milestones  of  prog 


ress." 


"So  then,  yes/'  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee — "whatever  else  you  may  do  as  you 


88  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

go  through  life,  remember  to  save  up 
your  gratitude  for  the  bitternesses  you 
have  known — and  remember  that  for  you 
the  bitterest  is  yet  to  come." 

"Have  you,  Annabel  Lee/'  I  asked, 
"already  known  the  bitterest  that  can 
come — and  can  you  sit  with  your  hands 
folded  in  the  midst  of  a  burning  house?" 

"Not  I!"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee, 
and  laughed  gayly. 

Again  I  looked  hard  at  her — and  she 
looked  back  at  me. 

Certainly  there  are  times  when  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee  is  like  a  stone  wall. 


fff 

TO    FALL    IN    LOVE 

I  LOVED  madly,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee.  "There  came  one 
down  out  of  the  north  country  that 
was  dark  and  strong  and  brave  and  full 
of  life's  fire.  All  my  short  life  had  been 
bathed  in  summer.  I  had  dreamed  my 
thirteen  years  beneath  cherry-blossoms 
upon  a  high  hill. 

"But  at  the  coming  of  this  man  from 
the  north  country  I  opened  my  two  sloe- 
eyes,  and  the  world  turned  white — exqui 
site,  rapturous,  divine  white. 

"And  afterward  all  was  heavy  gray. 

"Away  from  the  high  hill  of  the  cherry- 
blossoms  there  lay  a  stretch  of  red  barren 
waste  with  towering  rocks — and  beyond 
that  a  quiet,  quiet  sea  that  was  only  blue. 

89 


QO  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"At  the  left  of  the  high  hill  of  the 
cherry-blossoms  there  was  a  mountain 
covered  with  green  ivy — dark  green  ivy 
that  defined  its  own  green  shape  against 
the  brilliant  yellow  sky  behind  it.  Green 
and  yellow,  green  and  yellow,  green  and 
yellow,  said  the  sky  and  the  mountain 
covered  with  ivy. 

"The  high  hill  of  the  cherry-blossoms 
was  colored  with  all  the  colors  of  Japan. 

"I  lived  there  with  people — my  mother 
and  my  father  and  some  others — all  with 
pale  faces  and  sloe-eyes. 

"But  some  of  them  were  very  ugly. 

"Then  came  one  down  out  of  the  north 
country  that  was  dark  and  strong  and 
brave  and  full  of  life's  fire. 

"He  was  ugly,  but  his  face  was  perfect. 

"Straightway  I  fell  in  love  with  this 
one.  Of  all  things  in  Japan,  what  a  thing 
it  is  to  fall  in  love! 

"Where  the  red  barren  waste  lay  spread 


TO    FALL    IN    LOVE  QI 

below  me  I  saw  manifold  softnesses,  like 
a  dove's  breast,  like  a  fawn's  eyes,  like 
melted  lilies,  and  the  towering,  gloomy 
rocks  were  the  home  of  violet  dreams. 

"In  the  deep  green  of  the  ivy  mountain 
my  soul  found  rest  at  nightfall  among 
mystery  and  shadow.  It  wandered  there 
in  marvelous  peace.  And  the  coolness 
and  damp  and  the  low  muttering  of  the 
wind  and  the  night  birds  went  into  it  with 
a  stirring,  powerful  influence.  Also  the 
voices  out  of  the  very  long  ago  came 
from  among  the  green,  dark  ivy,  and 
from  the  crevices  of  gray  stones  beneath 
it,  and  they  told  me  true  things  in  the 
stillness. 

"From  the  deepness  of  the  brilliant 
yellow  sky — the  yellow  of  burnished  brass 
— there  came  legion  earth-old  contradic 
tions.  And  wondrous  paradox  and 
parallel  that  had  not  been  among  the 
cherry-blossoms  appeared  to  me  as  my 


Q2  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

mind  contemplated  these.  I  said,  Am  I 
thus  in  love  because  that  I  am  weak,  or 
that  I  am  strong?  For  I  see  here  that  it 
is  both  weakness  and  strength.  And  I 
said,  Am  I  myself  when  I  do  this  thing? 
or  was  that  I  who  lived  among  the  cherry- 
blossoms?  I  said,  Who  am  I?  What  am  I? 

''Below  all  there  was  the  blue,  broad 
sea.  This  sea  gave  out  a  white  mist  that 
rose  and  spread  over  the  earth.  I  knew 
that  I  was  in  love,  once  and  for  all. 

"The  world  was  white.  The  world  was 
beautiful.  The  world  was  divine. 

"Life  shone  out  of  the  mist  unspeak 
able  in  its  countless  possibilities.  Voices 
spoke  near  me  and  infinite  voices  called 
to  me  from  afar — they  sounded  clear  and 
faint  and  maddening-soft  and  tender, 
and  the  soul  of  me  answered  them  with 
deafening,  joyous  silent  music. 

"He  from  the  north  country  that  was 
dark  and  strong  and  brave  and  full  of 


TO    FALL   IN    LOVE  93 

life's  fire  came,  some  days,  to  the  high  hill 
of  the  cherry-blossoms.  He  spoke  often 
and  of  many  things.  He  spoke  to  people 
—to  my  mother  and  to  my  father,  and  to 
others.  And  rarely  he  spoke  to  me. 
Rarely  he  looked  at  me.  He  had  been 
in  the  great  world.  He  knew  wonderful 
women  and  wonderful  men.  He  had 
been  touched  with  all  things. 

"What  a  human  being  was  he! 

"And  of  all  things  in  Japan,  what  a 
thing  it  is  to  fall  in  love! 

"When  three  days  had  gone  my  heart 
knew  rapture  beyond  any  that  it  had 
dreamed.  It  knew  the  mysteries  and  the 
fullnesses. 

"After  three  days  the  world  turned  to 
that  divine  white,  and  was  white  for 
seven  days. 

"And  afterward  all  was  heavy  gray. 

"The  one  from  the  north  country  re 
turned  back  to  the  north  country. 


94  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"Of  all  things  in  Japan,  what  a  thing  it 
is  to  fall  in  love! 

"I  was  not  in  love  with  this  one  because 
he  was  a  man,  or  because  he  was  strange 
and  fascinating — but  because  he  was  a 
glorious  human  being. 

"My  heart  was  not  turned  to  this  one 
to  marry  him.  Marrying  and  giving  in 
marriage  are  for  such  as  are  in  love 
unconsciously. 

"To  see  this  one  from  the  north  coun 
try — to  hear  his  voice — that  was  life  and 
all  for  me — life  and  all. 

"But  he  was  gone. 

"He  left  a  silence  and  a  weariness. 

"These  came  and  crowded  out  the 
white  from  my  heart,  and  themselves 
found  lodgment  there. 

"And  all  was  heavy  gray. 

"The  picture  of  life  and  the  mystery 
and  shadow  that  was  revealed  to  me 
when  the  world  was  white  has  never 


TO    FALL    IN    LOVE  95 

gone.  It  has  filled  me  in  the  days  of  my 
youth  with  an  old  terror. 

"Of  all  things  in  Japan,  what  a  thing  it 
is  to  fall  in  love! 

'To  fall  in  love!" — said  my  friend  Anna- 
ble  Lee,  the  while  her  two  eyes  and  her 
two  white  hands,  in  their  expression, 
their  position,  told  of  a  thing  that  is 
heart-breaking  to  see. 


WHEN  I  WENT   TO    THE    BUTTE    HIGH    SCHOOL 


was  a  time,"  I  said  to  my 
friend     Annabel     Lee,    "when    I 
went  to  the   Butte  High  School. 
I  think  of  it  now  with  mingled  feelings." 
"You    were    younger    then,"    said    my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"I  was  younger,  and  in  those  days  I 
still  looked  upon  life  as  something  which 
would  one  day  open  wide  and  display 
wondrous  and  beautiful  things  for  me. 
And  meanwhile  I  went  every  day  to  the 
Butte  High  School.  I  found  it  a  very 
interesting  place  —  much  more  interesting 
than  I  have  since  found  the  broad  world. 
I  was  sixteen  and  seventeen  and  eighteen, 
and  things  were  not  brilliantly  colored, 
97 


98  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

and  so  I  made  much  with  a  vivid  fancy  of 
all  that  came  in  my  path." 

"And  what  do  you,  now  that  you  are 
one-and-twenty?"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

"I  sit  quietly,"  I  replied,  "and  wish  not, 
and  wait  not — and  look  back  upon  the 
days  in  the  Butte  High  School  with 
mingled  feelings." 

"Also  unawares,"  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee,  "you  still  think  things  relating  to 
that  which  is  one  day  to  open  wondrously 
for  you.  But,  never  mind,"  she  added 
hastily,  as  I  was  about  to  say  something, 
"tell  me  about  the  Butte  High  School." 

'Twas  a  place,"  said  I,  "where  were 
gathered  together  manifold  interesting 
phenomena,  and  where  I  studied  Vergil, 
and  grew  fond  of  it,  and  was  good  in  it; 
and  where  I  studied  geometry,  and  was 
fond  of  it,  and  knew  less  about  it  each 
day  that  I  studied  it;  —  and  always  I 


THE    BUTTE    HIGH    SCHOOL  QQ 

studied  closely  the  persons  whom  I  met 
daily  in  the  Butte  High  School.  I  recall 
very  clearly  each  member  of  the  class  of 
ninety-nine.  My  memory  conjures  up  for 
me  some  quaint  and  fantastic  visions 
against  picturesque  backgrounds  that 
appeal  to  my  sense  of  delicate  incon 
gruity,  especially  so  since  viewed  in  this 
light  and  from  this  distance." 

"What   are   some   of   them?"   said    my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"There  is  one,"  said  I,  "of  a  girl  whom 
always  in  my  mind  I  called  The  Shad,  for 
that  she  was  so  bland,  and  so  flat,  and  so 
silent, — and  she  had  a  bad  habit  of  asking 
me  to  write  her  Latin  exercises,  which 
perhaps  was  not  so  much  like  a  shad  as 
like  a  person;  and  there  is  one  of  a  girl 
who  spent  the  long  hours  of  the  day  in 
writing  long,  long  letters  to  her  love,  but 
knew  painfully  little  about  the  lessons  in 
the  class-rooms;  and  there  is  one  of  a  girl 


100  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

who  brought  to  school  every  day  a  small 
flask  of  whiskey  to  cheer  her  benighted 
hours, — she  was  daily  called  back  and 
down  by  the  French  teacher  on  account 
of  her  excessively  bad  French,  and  life 
had  looked  dull  for  her  were  it  not  for 
the  flask's  pungent  contents;  there  is  one 
of  a  strange-looking,  tawny-headed  girl 
who  sat  across  the  narrow  aisle  from  me 
in  the  assembly-room  during  my  last  year 
in  school,  who  kept  her  desk  neatly  piled 
with  the  works  (she  called  them  works) 
of  Albert  Ross — and  after  she  had  read 
them,  very  kindly  she  would  lean  over 
and  repeat  the  stories,  with  quotations 
verbatim,  for  my  benefit; — her  standing 
in  her  classes  was  not  brilliant,  but  in 
Albert  Ross  she  was  thorough;  there  is 
one  of  a  clever,  pretty  girl  who  was  mali 
cious — exquisitely  malicious  in  all  her 
ways  and  deeds,  and  seemingly  no 
thought  entered  her  head  that  was  not 


THE    BUTTE    HIGH*  SCHOOL  Id' 

fraught  with  it,  —  she  was  malicious  in 
algebra,  malicious  in  literature,  malicious 
in  ancient  history,  malicious  in  physical 
culture,  malicious  in  the  writing  of  short 
themes — and  when  it  so  chanced  that  I 
made  a  failure  in  a  recitation,  or  was 
stupid,  she  would  look  up  at  me  and  smile 
very  sweetly  and  maliciously;  and  there 
is  one  of  a  girl  whose  quaint  and  voluble 
profanity  haunts  me  still.  And  especially 
there  is  in  my  memory  a  picture  of  all 
these  on  our  graduating  day,  receiving 
each  a  fine  white  diploma  rolled  up  and 
neatly  tied  with  the  class  colors — a  picture 
of  these  and  the  others, — we  were  fifty- 
nine  in  all.  And  the  diplomas  stated 
tacitly,  in  heavily  engrossed  letters,  that 
we  had  all  been  good  for  four  years  and 
had  fulfilled  every  requirement  of  the 
Butte  High  School.  So  we  had,  doubt 
less — but  how  much  some  of  us  had  done 
for  which  in  our  diplomas  we  were  not 


*Q2  MY  '.FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

given  credit!  In  truth,  nothing  was  stated 
in  them,  in  engrossed  lettering,  about 
courses  in  love-letters,  or  profanity,  or 
malice,  and  Albert  Ross  was  not  in  the 
curriculum. 

"And  the  president  of  the  school  board 
doled  out  those  diplomas,  with  a  short,  set 
speech  for  each,  one  wet  June  day — but 
he  was  not  aware  how  insignificant  they 
were. 

"And  my  mind  likewise  conjures  up  a 
vision  of  two  with  whom  I  used  to  take 
what  we  called  tramps,  during  our  last 
year  in  the  High  School — far  down  and 
out  of  Butte,  on  Saturdays  and  other  days 
when  school  was  not.  I  remember  those 
two  and  those  tramps  exceeding  well — 
nor  can  I  think  with  but  four  years  gone 
that  the  two  themselves  have  forgotten. 
One  of  these  was  an  individual  whose 
like  I  have  not  since  known.  She  re 
minded  me  sometimes  of  Cleopatra  and 


THE    BUTTE    HIGH    SCHOOL  103 

sometimes  of  Peg  of  Limmavaddy.  She 
was  of  Irish  ancestry  and  had  a  long 
black  mane  of  hair  braided  down  behind, 
and  two  conscious  and  lurid  eyes  of  the 
kind  that  is  known  as  Irish  blue.  She 
had  brains  enough  within  her  head, 
but  did  not  study  overmuch.  Her  ways 
of  going  through  life  were  often  very 
dubious.  She  weighed  a  great  many 
pounds.  Her  experience  of  the  world 
was  large,  and  to  me  she  was  fascinating. 
For  herself,  she  was  always  rather  afraid 
of  me — so  much  afraid,  in  truth,  that  if  I 
said  a  funny  thing  she  must  need  laugh — 
with  a  forced  and  fictitious  merriment;  if 
I  told  her  she  had  no  soul,  she  must  need 
agree  with  me  abjectly,  though  she  was  a 
good  Catholic;  if  I  frowned  upon  her,  she 
shivered  and  was  silent.  Fanciful  names 
and  frocks  (though  this  lady's  frocks  were 
always  fanciful  in  ways)  were  selected  for 
these  tramping  expeditions.  This  one's 


IO4  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

fanciful  name  was  called  Muddled  Maud. 
For  no  particular  reason,  I  believe — but 
she  wore  it  well.  The  other  member  of 
our  trio  was  of  a  less  extraordinary  type. 
She  was  stout  as  to  figure,  and  she  knew 
a  great  deal  about  some  things.  She  was 
very  good  in  history,  and  at  home  she 
could  make  pie  and  cake  and  bread.  It 
is  true  that  her  cake  sometimes  stuck, 
and  sometimes  sank  in  the  middle,  and 
when  she  carved  a  fowl  she  could  not 
always  hit  the  joints.  And  she  was  one 
of  the  kind  that  always  pronounces  pic 
ture,  ''pitcher."  She  was  also  known  as 
a  very  sensible  girl.  I  can  see  her  now 
with  a  purple  ribbon  around  her  neck  and 
a  brown  rain-coat  on  coming  into  the 
High  School  on  a  wet  morning.  When 
we  went  tramping  she  usually  wore  an 
immense  gray -white,  mother  -  hubbard 
gown,  belted  in  at  the  waist,  and  a  wide 
flat  hat,  which  made  her  look  rather  like 


THE    BUTTE   HIGH    SCHOOL  IO5 

a  toad-stool.  Her  fanciful  name  was 
Emancipated  Eva.  Emancipated,  in 
truth,  she  was.  In  the  High  School  she 
was  dignified  and  sedate,  but  on  our 
tramps  she  would  frequently  skip  like  a 
young  lamb,  and  frisk  and  gambol  down 
there  in  the  country. 

"She  who  was  called  Muddled  Maud 
likewise  frisked  and  gamboled  —  and 
always  she  personified  my  idea  of  the 
French  noun  abandon. 

"Also  I  frisked  and  gamboled  in  those 
days  far  down  in  the  country. 

"The  fanciful  name  selected  for  me  was 
Refreshment  Rosanna — and  I  can  not  tell 
why.  But  it  was  thought  a  good  name 
for  a  lady  tramp.  We  started  on  these 
tramps  at  six  in  the  morning.  We  would 
rise  from  our  beds  at  five,  and  at  ten 
minutes  before  six  I  would  meet  Muddled 
Maud  at  the  corner  of  Washington  and 
Quartz  streets,  below  her  house.  To- 


106  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

gether  we  would  go  down  east  Park 
street  to  the  home  of  Emancipated  Eva. 
Then  we  walked  seven  miles  or  eight 
away  into  the  open  and  the  wild. 

"We  took  things  along  to  eat — some 
times  a  great  many  things  and  sometimes 
a  few.  Times  Muddled  Maud  would 
have  but  a  curious-looking  jelly-roll,  and 
Emancipated  Eva  would  come  laden  with 
hard  bits  of  beef,  and  I  could  show  but  a 
plate  of  fudge.  But  other  times  there 
were  tarts  and  meat-pies  and  turnovers, 
and  deviled  ham  and  deviled  chicken  and 
deviled  veal  and  deviled  tongue  and 
deviled  fish  of  divers  kinds,  and  some 
bottles  of  nut-brown  October  ale,  and 
sardines  a  Fkuile,  and  green,  green  olives. 
Only  the  more  there  was,  the  harder  to 
carry.  But,  times,  Muddled  Maud  would 
carry  much  with  little  effort — she  would 
adorn  herself  with  the  luncheon — a  long 
bit  of  sausage-link  about  her  neck  like  a 


THE    BUTTE    HIGH    SCHOOL  IO7 

chain,  and  upon  her  hat,  held  securely 
with  bonnet-pins,  fat  yellow  lemons,  and 
two  bananas  crossed  in  front  like  the  tiny 
guns  on  a  soldier's  hat,  and  bunches  of 
Catawba  grapes  scattered  here  and  there, 
and  pears  hanging  by  their  little  stems 
behind. 

"The  too  early  morning  prevented  all 
from  being  seen  by  the  inhabitants  of 
Butte,  and  we  did  not  venture  home  again 
until  came  the  friendly  darkness. 

"Those  were  fascinating  expeditions — 
and  whose  was  the  glory?  Mine  was  the 
glory.  'Twas  I  who  invented  them. 
'Twas  I  who  knew  there  was  none  so 
fitted  for  a  so  delicate  absurdity  as  she 
we  called  Muddled  Maud;  and  after  her, 
none  so  fitted  as  the  fair,  the  good- 
natured,  the  Emancipated;  and  together 
with  them  both,  I.  And  I  led  them  forth, 
and  I  led  them  back,  and  I  said  things 
should  be  thus  and  so,  and  straightway 


IO8  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

they  were  thus  and  so.  And  we  enjoyed 
it,  and  clear  air  was  in  our  lungs  and  life 
was  in  our  veins,  for  we  had  each  but 
eighteen  years  and  were  full  of  youth. 
But  most  of  all  'twas  fascinating  because 
we  were  three  of  three  widely  differing 
manners  of  living  and  methods  of  reason 
ing.  For  I  was  not  like  Emancipated 
Eva,  nor  yet  like  Muddled  Maud;  and 
Emancipated  Eva  was  not  like  me,  nor 
yet  like  Muddled  Maud;  and  Muddled 
Maud  was  not  like  Emancipated  Eva,  nor 
yet  like  me. 

'To  be  sure,  there  were  some  things  in 
my  ordering  which  neither  the  one  nor 
the  other  found  enchanting.  Why  should 
the  Mac  Lane  do  all  the  ordering?  they 
murmured  between  themselves,  but  they 
dared  not  openly  revolt,  so  all  went  well. 

"But  now  these  are  gone. 

"The  three  of  us  were  graduated  from 
the  Butte  High  School  with  the  fifty-nine 


THE    BUTTE    HIGH    SCHOOL  IOQ 

others  of  ninety-nine,  and  had  each  a  fine 
white  diploma,  and  went  our  ways. 

"She  who  was  like  Cleopatra  and  Peg 
of  Limmavaddy  is  teaching  a  school, 
according  to  the  last  that  I  heard,  in  the 
north  of  Montana;  and  she  that  was 
Emancipated  Eva  has  long  since  gone  to 
California,  and  is  married,  and  keeps  a 
house;  and  for  me — I  am  here,  far  off 
from  Butte,  with  you,  Annabel  Lee,  some 
things  having  been  done  meanwhile. 

"But  though  the  two  are  gone,  I  war 
rant  they  have  not  forgotten.  They  have 
not  forgotten  the  Butte  High  School,  nor 
the  class  of  ninety-nine,  nor  the  tramps 
we  went,  nor  their  tyrant,  me. 

"And  I  daresay  they  all  remember  their 
Butte  High  School — she  of  the  love- 
letters,  she  of  the  whiskey-flask,  she  the 
student  of  Albert  Ross,  she  of  the  pro 
fanity,  she  of  the  malice,  The  Shad, — and 
all  the  nine-and-fifty,  the  young  feminine 


HO  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

persons  and  the  young  masculine  persons. 
Some  are  married,  and  some  are  flown, 
and  some  of  them  are  grown  up  and 
different,  'and  some  of  them  in  the 
churchyard  lie,  and  some  are  gone  to  sea.' 

"But  whenever  I've  a  fancy  to  shut  my 
eyes  and  look  back,  I  can  see  them  all,  a 
quaint  company. 

"Also,  whenever  I've  a  fancy  to  shut 
my  eyes  and  look  back  to  life  when  it  was 
unspeakably  brilliant  in  possibilities  to 
look  forward  to,  and  was  marked  in 
parti-colored  checks  and  rings,  it  fetches 
me  to  the  days  when  I  went  to  the  Butte 
High  School  and  studied  geometry  and 
Vergil.  Only  I'm  glad  I'm  not  there 
now." 

"What  for?"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

"It  is  rather  pitiful  and  dreadful  to 
think  of  having  been  seventeen,  and  to 
have  gone  every  day  to  the  Butte  High 


THE    BUTTE    HIGH    SCHOOL  III 

School  and  imagined  how  wonderful- 
beautiful  life  would  be  some  day,"  said  I, 
and  all  at  once  felt  very  weary. 


"AND  MARY  MAC  LANE  AND  ME" 

THERE  are   times   in   a   number   of 
days  when  my  friend  Annabel  Lee 
and  I  enjoy  a  cigarette  together. 
My  friend  Annabel   Lee,  with  her  cigar 
ette,     her     petite     much  -  colored     form 
wrapped  round  in  clouds  of  thin,  exquisite 
gray,    is   more   than    all    suggestive    and 
inscrutable.     She   leans   her   two   elbows 
on  something  and  looks  out  at  me. 

I  with  my  cigarette  am  nothing  but  I 
with  my  cigarette.  I  enjoy  it,  but  am  not 
beautiful  with  it,  nor  fascinating. 

But  my  friend  Annabel  Lee  is  all  that 
my  imagination  can  take  in.  Under  the 
influence  of  the  thin,  exquisite  gray  she 
grows  fanciful,  and  subtly  and  indefinitely 


114  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

she  meets  me  somewhere,  and  extends 
me  her  hand  for  a  moment. 

"Don't  you  know,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee,  with  her  cigarette,  "that  old 
song  that  goes: 

'Mary  Seaton, 
And  Mary  Beaton, 
And  Mary  Carmichael, 
And  me'? 

I  think  it  is  Mary  Stuart  of  Scotland  who 
says  that.  And  a  fair  good  song  it  is. 
But  just  now,  for  me,  if  I  were  Mary 
Stuart  of  Scotland,  you  poor  miserable 
little  rat,  I  should  say: 

'Mary  Mac  Lane, 
And  Mary  Mac  Lane, 
And  Mary  Mac  Lane, 
And  me.' 

For  aren't  we  two  together  here,  calmly 
smoking  —  and  doesn't  the  world  spin 
round?" 


"AND  MARY  MAC  LANE  AND  ME"     115 

I  was  enchanted.  How  few  are  the 
times  when  my  friend  Annabel  Lee  is 
like  this,  warm  and  friendly  and  lightly 
contemptuous  and  inclined  to  gro- 
tesquerie. 

Tis  so  that  she  becomes  human  and 
someway  near  to  me. 

"Yes,  I  should  say  Mary  Mac  Lane,  and 
Mary  Mac  Lane,  and  Mary  Mac  Lane, 
and  me,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee 
from  her  gently-puffed  clouds.  "There 
are  times  when  you  are  soft  and  satisfy 
ing  as  a  gray  pussy-cat.  If  I  stroke  you, 
you  will  purr.  If  I  give  you  cream,  you 
will  lap  it  up.  And  then  you  will  curl  up 
warmly  in  my  lap  and  sleep  and  purr  and 
open  and  shut  your  little  fur  paws. 

'I  will  sit  by  the  fire 
And  give  her  some  food, 
And  pussy  will  love  me 
Because  I  am  good.' 


Il6  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

What  literature  is  more  literature  than 
Mother  Goose?"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee.  "And  will  you  love  me — because  I 
am  good?  Has  it  occurred  to  you  that 
you  must  love  what  is  good  and  because 
it  is  good,  you  poor,  miserable,  little  rat, — 
and  that  you  must  hate  what  is  evil?  Look 
at  me,  look  at  me! — am  I  good?" 

I  looked  at  her.  Certainly  she  was 
good.  Just  then  she  had  a  look  of  angels. 

"Do  you  love  me?"  said  my  friend  An 
nabel  Lee,  with  her  cigarette. 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  I. 

"Look  at  me  again — am  I  evil?"  said 
my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"I  presume  you  are,"  I  replied,  for  then 
she  looked  vindictive  and  vicious. 

"And  do  you  hate  me?" 

"No,"  said  I. 

"Then  you  are  very  bad  and  wicked 
yourself,  you  poor,  miserable,  little  rat," 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee,  with  her 


"AND    MARY    MAC  LANE    AND    ME"       117 

cigarette,  "and  the  world  and  all  good 
people  will  condemn  you." 

"I  fear,"  said  I,  with  my  cigarette,  "that 
the  world  and  all  good  people  already  do 
that." 

"Ah,  do  they!"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee.  "Never  mind — I  will  take  care  of 
you,  you  poor,  miserable,  little  rat;  I  will 
make  all  soft  for  you;  I  will  keep  out  the 
cold;  I  will  color  the  dullness;  I  will  fight 
off  the  mob." 

"And  I,"  I  replied,  "if  for  that  reason 
you  do  so,  will  thank  the  world  and  all 
good  people  for  condemning  me." 

"That  was  neatly  said,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee.  "But  let  me  tell  you,  when 
the  world  grows  soft,  I  will  grow  hard- 
hard  as  nails." 

"Then  let  the  world  stay  hard,"  I  said 
— "hard  and  bitter  as  wormwood,  if  it  will, 
so  that  you  come  indeed  thus  friendly 
to  me  through  these  gray  clouds." 


Il8  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL 

"That,  too,  was  very  neat,"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee;  "but  mostly  it  goes 
to  show  that  a  bird  in  the  hand  is  worth 
two  in  the  bush.  What  literature  is  more 
literature  than  the  proverbs?  What  is  a 
bird  in  the  hand  worth?"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"Two  in  the  bush,"  said  I. 

"Where  does  charity  begin?"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"At  home,"  said  I. 

"What  does  it  cover?"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"A  multitude  of  sins,"  said  I. 

"What's  a  miss  as  good  as?"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"A  mile,"  said  I. 

"What  makes  the  mare  go?"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Money,"  said  I. 

"Whom  does  conscience  make  cowards 
of?"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 


"AND  MARY  MAC  LANE  AND  ME       119 

"Us  all,"  said  I. 

"What  does  a  stitch  in  time  save?"  said 
my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Nine,"  said  I. 

"When  are  a  fool  and  his  money 
parted?"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Soon,"  said  I. 

"What  do  too  many  cooks  spoil?"  said 
my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"The  broth,"  said  I. 

"What's  an  idle  brain?"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"The  devil's  workshop,"  said  I. 

"What  may  a  cat  look  at?"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"A  king,"  said  I. 

"What's  truth  stranger  than?"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Fiction,"  said  I. 

"What's  there  many  a  slip  betwixt?" 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"The  cup  and  the  lip."  said  I. 


120  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

"How  do  birds  of  a  feather  flock?"  said 
my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

'Together,"  said  I. 

"What  do  fools  do  where  angels  fear 
to  tread?"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Rush  in,"  said  I. 

"What  does  many  a  mickle  make?"  said 
my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"A  muckle,"  said  I. 

"What  will  the  pounds  do  if  you  take 
care  of  the  pence?"  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee. 

"Take  care  of  themselves,"  said  I. 

"What  do  curses  do,  like  chickens?" 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Come  home  to  roost,"  said  I. 

"What  is  it  that  has  no  turning?"  said 
my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"A  long  lane,"  said  I. 

"What  does  an  ill  wind  blow?"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Nobody  good,"  said  I. 


"AND  MARY  MAC  LANE  AND  ME"     121 


"What's  a  merciful  man  merciful  to?" 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"His  beast,"  said  I. 

"What's  better  to  do  than  to  break?" 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Bend,"  said  I. 

"What's  an  ounce  of  prevention 
worth?"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"A  pound  of  cure,"  said  I. 

"What's  there  nothing  half  so  sweet  in 
life  as?"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Love's  young  dream,"  said  I. 

"What  does  absence  make?"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"The  heart  grow  fonder,"  said  I. 

"How  would  a  rose  by  any  other 
name  smell?"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

"As  sweet,"  said  I. 

"How  did  the  Assyrian  come  down?" 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Like  a  wolf  on  the  fold,"  said  I. 


122  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"What  were  his  cohorts  gleaming 
with?"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Purple  and  gold,"  said  I. 

"What  was  the  sheen  of  their  spears 
like?"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Stars  on  the  sea,"  said  I. 

"When?"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"When  the  blue  wave  rolls  nightly  on 
deep  Galilee,"  said  I. 

"All  of  which  proves,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee,  "that  I've  but  to  fiddle  and 
you  will  dance,  you  poor,  miserable,  little 
rat.  And  my  thought  is,  what  is  it  better 
to  be  than  second  in  Rome?" 

"First  in  a  little  Iberian  village,"  said  I. 

"But  I'm  not  sure  whether  it  is  or  not," 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee.  "Some  day 
you  and  I  will  go  out  into  the  great,  broad 
world.  Then  we  shall  see  who  will  be 
first  and  who  will  be  second.  The  great, 
broad  world  is  the  best  place  of  all 
wherein  to  find  ourselves.  And  no  matter 


AND   MARY    MAC  LANE    AND    ME  123 

how  we  were  situated  before,  we  shall 
certainly  be  situated  differently  in  the 
great  broad  world.  In  the  great  broad 
world  there  will  be  apples — apples  enough 
for  you  and  for  me.  But,  who  knows? 
you  poor  miserable  little  rat;  it  may  be 
that  your  lot  will  be  all  the  sweet,  juicy 
apples,  whilst  I  shall  be  given  the  cores. 
In  the  great  broad  world  there  will  be 
ripe-red-raspberry  shortcake — enough  for 
you  and  for  me.  But,  who  knows?  you 
poor  miserable  little  rat;  it  may  be  that 
your  lot  will  be  all  the  ripe  red  raspber 
ries,  whilst  I  shall  be  given  the  crusts.  In 
the  great  broad  world  there  will  be  cig 
arettes — cigarettes  enough  for  you  and 
for  me.  But,  who  knows?  You  poor  mis 
erable  little  rat;  it  may  be  that  your  lot 
will  be  all  the  fine  Egyptian  tobacco  and 
rice  paper  and  clouds  and  clouds  and 
clouds  of  pearl  gray,  soft  pearl  gray,  to 
wrap  you  round,  whilst  I  shall  go  looking 


124  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

in  empty  boxes  all  day  long,  and  never  a 
cigarette.  In  which  case  mine  will  be  by 
far  the  better  lot  in  the  end,"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee,  "according  to  the 
law  of  compensation." 

"Oh,  dear!"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  petulantly;  "why  do  you  sit  there 
stupidly  staring?  Talk  and  amuse  me, 
why  don't  you?  Make  me  feel  sweet  and 
content." 

"If  I  were  but  that  myself,  Annabel 
Lee,"  said  I.  "I  can  not  talk  interestingly, 
but  if  you  like  I  will  ask  you  the  proverbs 
and  you  may  answer  them.  That  amused 
me  much — and  it  gave  me  a  wonderful 
feeling  of  satisfaction,  quite  as  if  I  were 
seven  years  old  and  knew  my  lesson  per 
fectly." 

"You  ask  and  I  answer?"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee.  "Very  good.  But 
I  don't  know  my  lesson  perfectly. 
Begin." 


"AND  MARY  MAC  LANE  AND  ME"     125 

"What's   a   bird   in   the   hand   worth?" 
said  I. 

"A  pound  of  cure,"  said  my  friend  An 
nabel  Lee. 

"What   does    a    stitch   in   time   save?" 
said  I. 

"Two   in    the    bush,"   said    my   friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"Where  does  charity  begin?"  said  I. 

"Betwixt  the  cup  and  the  lip,"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"What  may  a  cat  look  at?"  said  I. 

"The  broth,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

'What   does    many   a    mickle   make?" 
said  I. 

"A  multitude  of  sins,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"What  do  too  many  cooks  spoil?"  said  I. 

"Us  all,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"Whom  does  conscience  make  cowards 
of?"  said  I. 


126  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"Dead  men  and  fools,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"What  is  it  that  has  no  turning?"  said  I. 

"A  full  stomach,"  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee. 

"What  fortifies  a  stout  heart?"  said  I. 

"A  stitch  in  time,"  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee. 

"What  does  money  make?"  said  I. 

"An  ill  wind,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

"What  will  the  pounds  do  if  you  take 
care  of  the  pence?"  said  I. 

"Come  home  to  roost,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"Where  is  there  many  a  slip?"  said  I. 

"Where  angels  fear  to  tread,"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"What's  sharper  than  a  serpent's 
tooth?"  said  I. 

"The  pen,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 


"AND  MARY  MAC  LANE  AND  ME       127 

"What's    mightier    than     the    sword?" 
said  I. 

"A  rich  man,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

"What  makes  the  mare  go?"  said  I. 

"A  fool  and  his  money,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"What  should  they  do  who  live  in  glass 
houses?"  said  I. 

"Draw  down  the  blinds,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"What's  a  man's  castle?"  said  I. 

"The  devil's  workshop,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"What's  better  to  do  than  to  break?" 
said  I. 

"Rob  Peter,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

"What's  the  wind  tempered  to?"  said  I. 

"The   camel's    back,"    said    my   friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"Wrhat  do  many  hands  make?"  said  I. 


128  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"A  shorn  lamb,"  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee. 

"What  can't  you  make  out  of  a  pig's 
ear?"  said  I. 

"A  gift-horse,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

''What  should  you  never  look  in  the 
mouth?"  said  I. 

"A  silk  purse,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

"What's  half  a  loaf  better  than?"  said  I. 

"Chickens  before  they  are  hatched," 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"But  let's  not  play  this  any  more,"  said 
my  friend  Annabel  Lee.  "I'm  languid 
and  weary.  Can't  you  talk  to  me — and 
talk  so  that  I  may  feel  rested  and  com 
fortable?  And  don't  stare!" 

"I  fear  I  can't  amuse  you.  I  am  sorry," 
said  I.  "You  may  envy  me,  Annabel 
Lee.  You  have  not  Annabel  Lee  to  took 
at.  Would  not  life  look  rich  and  full  to 


"AND  MARY  MAC  LANE  AND  ME"     129 

you  if  you  could  see  before  you  your  own 
vague,  purple  eyes,  and  your  red.  red  lips, 
and  those  hands  of  power  and  romance 
— you,  with  your  scarlet  gown  and  the 
gold  marguerites  coming  near  and  fading 
away  in  mist?" 

"No,  not  particularly,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee.  "I  rather  like  your  looks," 
she  added,  and  her  purple  eyes  became 
less  vague — "sitting  there  in  your  small 
black  frock;  and  you  puff  at  that  tobacco 
much  like  a  toy  engine.  Come,  you 
amuse  me  —  you  please  me.  Come  near 
me." 

She  held  out  one  of  her  hands  and  the 
purple  eyes  changed  suddenly  into  some 
thing  that  was  rarely  and  indescribably 
friendly. 

I  felt  much  from  life. 

My  friend  Annabel  Lee  rested  the 
hand  she  had  held  out  upon  my  shoulder. 

"When   we  go   into   the   great,   broad 


ISO  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

world,  Mary    MacLane,"  she  said,  "and 
you  have  all  the  apples,  and  all  the  ripe- 
red-raspberry  shortcake,  and  all  the  cig 
arettes,  then  perhaps  will  you  share  them 
with  me?" 

I  said  I  would. 


A    STORY    OF    SPOON-BILLS 

WHEN  the  mood  takes  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee  she  will,  if  I  beg 
her,  tell  me  quaint  and  fantastic 
stories,  such  as  are  hidden  away  in  the 
dusty  crevices  of  this  world  These  tales 
have  lain  away  there  for  centuries,  and 
spiders  have  spun  webs  over  and  about 
them,  so  that  when,  perchance,  they  are 
brought  out,  bits  of  fine  gray  fiber  are  to 
be  found  among  the  lines. 

Yesterday  a  pretty,  plain  story  by  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee  that  runs  through 
my  mind. 

"Long  ago,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "there  lived  in  Egypt  a  family  of 
well-born  but  poorly-bred  Spoon-bills  in 
a  green  marsh  by  the  side  of  the  great 


132  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

green  river  Nile.  This  family  numbered 
five,  and  they  were  united  and  dwelling 
in  peace.  There  were  the  father  and 
mother  and  two  daughters  and  a  son. 
And  there  had  been  another  son,  but  he 
was  dead.  And  their  names  were  Maren 
Spoon-bill,  the  mother;  and  Oliver  W. 
Spoon-bill;  the  father;  and  Lilith  Spoon 
bill,  the  elder  daughter;  and  Delilah 
Spoon-bill,  the  younger  daughter.  And 
the  son's  name  was  Le  Page  Spoon-bill. 

"The  son  who  had  died  was  named 
Roland  Spoon-bill.  He  was  buried  at  the 
edge  of  the  marsh,  and  his  name  and  the 
date  were  carved  upon  a  square,  black, 
wooden  tablet  to  his  memory  at  the  head 
of  the  grave.  There  was  also  this  legend 
upon  the  tablet:  'Age  15.  Gone  in  the 
hey-day  of  youth  to  his  last  rest.  But  his 
virtues  are  with  us  still.' 

"And  little  Delilah  Spoon-bill,  who  was 
an  elementary,  fanciful  child  of  nine,  used 


A   STORY   OF   SPOON-BILLS  133 

to  stand  staring  at  this  legend  and  won 
dering  about  it.  A  weeping  willow  hung 
low  over  the  grave,  and  Delilah  would 
stand  near  it  picking  gnats  from  its 
branches  with  her  bill,  and  speculating 
about  the  legend.  She  wondered  for  one 
thing  what  'hey-day'  meant.  Was  it  any 
thing  like  a  birth-day?  Or  was  it,  on  the 
contrary,  a  day  when  everything  went 
wrong  and  ended  by  a  person's  being 
shut  into  a  dark  bed-room?  Or  was  it, 
perhaps,  a  picnic  day — with  tarts  made  of 
red  jam?  In  that  case  Delilah  felt  very 
sorry  for  her  brother  that  he  should  have 
died  on  such  a  day,  for  if  there  is  an 
article  of  diet  that  spoon-bills  really  like 
it  is  tarts  of  red  jam  —  made  the  way 
Canadians  make  them. 

"But  she  never  could  decide. 

"And  another  thing  about  the  epitaph 
that  'puzzled  her  was  the  concluding 
clause — 'but  his  virtues  are  with  us  still.' 


134  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

What  could  virtues  be?  she  asked  herself. 
Were  they  anything  like  feathers,  or  were 
they  good  to  eat,  or  were  they  something 
she  had  never  seen  and  knew  nothing 
about?  But  the  letters  said  plainly,  'his 
virtues  are  with  us  still.'  Truly,  if  they 
were  among  the  family  possessions,  why 
had  she  not  seen  them?  For  anything 
that  belonged  to  any  of  the  Spoon-bill 
family  that  was  at  all  out  of  the  ordinary 
was  always  placed  in  an  oak  cabinet  with 
glass  doors  that  stood  in  a  corner  of  the 
hall  in  their  marsh  home.  Delilah  had 
often  looked  in  this  cabinet  to  see  if  the 
virtues  of  her  brother  were  not  there. 
There  were  dried  snake  skins,  and  curi 
ous  white  stones,  and  Spanish  moss,  and 
devil's  snuff-boxes — but  no,  there  were  no 
virtues.  Of  that  she  was  convinced.  She 
appealed  to  her  older  sister.  'Lilith,' 
said  Delilah,  'what  are  virtues,  and  where 
do  we  keep  Roland's?  Don't  you  know, 


A   STORY   OF   SPOON-BILLS  135 

on  the  tombstone  it  says,  "his  virtues  are 
with  us  still."  ' 

'  'Aren't  you  a  silly!'  said  Lilith,  laugh 
ing  in  Spoon-billish  derision.  Lilith  was 
twelve,  and  one  knows  vastly  more  at 
twelve  than  at  nine.  'Virtues  aren't  any 
thing.  And  as  for  Roland's — that  doesn't 
mean  that  he  left  them  with  us,  any 
more  than  that  he  took  them  with 
him.' 

'Then  what  does  it  mean?'  said  Delilah. 
'I've  thought  so  much  about  it.' 

'You'll  have  to  think  some  more,'  said 
Lilith — 'a  good  deal  more,  I  should  say 
— of  yoiir  kind  of  thinking!' 

"Delilah  did  not  often  appeal  to  her 
sister  in  these  matters.  She  did  not  enjoy 
Lilith's  habit  of  laughing.  In  truth,  she 
didn't  enjoy  being  laughed  at  at  all — not 
the  least  in  the  world.  She  was  like  a 
great  many  other  people. 

"And  so  was  Lilith. 


136  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"But  oh,  there  were  many  things  that 
Delilah  wished  to  know! 

"The  Spoon-bill  family  was,  as  I  have 
said,  well  born  but  poorly  bred.  Maren 
Spoon-bill  and  Oliver  W.  Spoon-bill  both 
came  of  very  good  stock,  but  they  had 
been  the  black  sheep  of  their  families  and 
had  forgotten  the  traditions  and  customs 
of  their  race.  'They  had  left  no  more 
pride,'  Maren  Spoon-bill's  mother  once 
said,  'than  a  sand-hill  crane — no,  nor  a 
duck.' 

'  'No,  nor  a  duck/  echoed  Maren 
Spoon-bill  and  her  husband,  and  gloried 
in  it. 

"And  the  children  ran  wild. 

"But  the  children,  though  they  ran 
wild,  were  not  without  ambition.  On 
summer  evenings,  when  the  family  took 
tea  on  the  back  porch  and  it  was  too 
warm  for  the  children  to  run  about  much, 
they  used  to  sit  and  tell  their  ambitions. 


A   STORY   OF   SPOON-BILLS  137 

'  Tm  going  to  be  an  actress  when  /get 
big,'  declared  Lilith.  Tm  going  to  have 
a  splendid  career  on  the  stage,  and  I  shall 
earn  heaps  of  money.  And  I  shall  have 
magnificent  clothes,  and  every  one  will 
look  at  me  and  say,  "Isrit  she  in  stunning 
form  to-night!" 

"And  Le  Page  and  Delilah  were  so 
overcome  by  the  vision  thus  presented  of 
their  sister  that  they  could  but  stare, 
awed  and  silent. 

"And  Delilah  wondered  how  it  must 
seem  to  be  so  very  clever. 

"But  Le  Page,  who  was  eleven  years 
old  himself,  soon  rallied. 

1  'Well,  then,'  said  he,  'when  7  get  big 
I'm  going  to  be  a  pirate.  I'll  lay  over  all 
the  pirates  that  ever  were,  a-firing  and 
a-pillaging  —  and  I'll  wear  magnificent 
clothes,  and  everyone  will  look  at  me 
and  say,  "Isrit  he  in  stunning  form 
to-night!"  ' 


138  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

"Delilah  thought  this  latter  sounded 
strangely  like  Lilith  —  but  perhaps  in 
some  subtle  way  a  pirate  was  like  an 
actress,  and  so  must  need  be  described  in 
the  same  terms. 

"  'And  Delilah/  said  her  father,  'what 
shall  you  be — what  kind  of  clothes  are 
you  going  to  wear?' 

"Delilah  had  before  tried  the  experi 
ment  of  relating  her  ambition  to  the 
assembled  family,  and  the  result  had 
been  bad.  The  high  laughter  of  Lilith 
and  Le  Page  always  rose  on  the  still 
evening  air,  and  even  her  father,  who 
was  a  kind  person,  would  smile.  Delilah's 
ambition  was  always  the  same,  but  she 
nearly  always  varied  it  a  little  at  each 
telling — and  the  amusement  evinced  by 
her  sister  and  brother  varied  accordingly. 

"Sometimes  they  even  flapped  their 
wings. 

"Which  was  too  cruel. 


A   STORY   OF   SPOON-BILLS  139 

"Forsooth,  children  are  always  cruel. 

"But  while  Delilah's  ambition  was  al 
ways  the  same,  those  of  Lilith  and  LePage 
covered  an  exceeding  wide  range.  Some 
evenings  Lilith  would  draw  a  glowing 
picture  of  herself  as  a  lecturer  of  renown 
with  a  wonderful  personal  magnetism  and 
a  telling  style — she  would  move  the  mul 
titudes  and  draw  tears  from  stony  eyes  by 
lifting  up  her  voice.  Whereupon  Le  Page, 
when  he  had  recovered  his  breath,  would 
portray  himself  as  a  celebrated  scientist 
delving  in  marvelous  chemical  mysteries 
and  discovering  things  of  untold  benefit 
to  the  race.  He  also  would  move  the 
multitudes  and  draw  tears  from  stony  eyes. 

"And  Delilah  would  wonder  what  were 
lecturers  and  scientists,  and  how  they 
could  do  these  things. 

"And  when  Lilith  would  announce  her 
intention  of  becoming  a  famous  sculptor 
whose  work  in  the  passionate  would  be 


140  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

the  delight  of  her  day,  then  Le  Page 
would  turn  his  mind  to  the  idea  of  becom 
ing  a  noted  explorer  who  would  penetrate 
into  Darkest  Africa  and  Farthest  North, 
and  whose  work  in  the  passionate  would 
be  the  delight  of  his  day. 

"And   Delilah  would  marvel  still  more. 

"Forsooth,  children  are  always  like  that 
— and  fascinating  they  are. 

"And  each  summer  evening  after 
Lilith  and  Le  Page  had  related  their 
ambitions,  their  father  would  ask  Delilah 
what  was  hers.  Then  always  Delilah 
would  whisper;  Tm  going  to  study  tomb 
stones,  papa!  And  when  I  get  big  per 
haps  I  shall  know  what  every  single 
tombstone  in  the  world  means.  And 
perhaps  after  I've  studied  a  long  time 
and  hard  I  can  read  Roland's  right  off 
and  know  what  it  means  without  think 
ing.  And  perhaps  I  can  explain  them  all 
to  people  who  don't  know  about  them/ 


A   STORY   OF   SPOON-BILLS  14! 

"Which  to  Delilah  was  a  daring  ambi 
tion  indeed — quite  hitching  her  wagon  to 
a  star. 

"Well,  then,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "this  was  when  the  Spoon-bill  family 
was  in  its  youngness. 

"The  years  followed  one  after  another, 
and  the  three  children  grew.  And  it 
came  about  that  Lilith  was  three-and- 
twenty,  and  Le  Page  was  two-and-twenty, 
and  Delilah  was  twenty. 

"They  were  much  as  they  had  been 
when  they  were  children.  Lilith,  I  may 
say  in  passing,  was  not  an  actress,  nor  a 
lecturer,  nor  yet  a  sculptor — and  Le  Page 
was  merely  Le  Page. 

"Also  Delilah  was  Delilah,  but  had 
ceased  to  be  elementary  in  some  ways, 
while  in  others  she  was  still,  and  so  would 
be  until  the  finish. 

"It  so  happened  that  a  young  spoon-bill 
of  masculine  persuasion,  from  the  other 


142  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

side  of  the  great  green  river  Nile,  fell  in 
love  with  Delilah. 

"Likewise  Delilah  fell  in  love  with  a 
young  spoon-bill,  but  not  that  young 
spoon-bill. 

"It  happens  frequently  so. 

"And  Delilah  did  not  fancy  the  spoon 
bill  from  the  other  side  of  the  river,  and 
the  spoon-bill  with  whom  Delilah  was  in 
love  did  not  fancy  her  in  just  that  way. 

"Which  also  happens  frequently. 

"On  a  day  when  the  river  Nile  was 
very  green,  and  heavy  sickening-sweet 
flowers  of  dead  white  color  hung  from 
black  trees  on  the  banks,  and  the  sky  was, 
oh,  so  blue,  and  all  was  summer,  the 
young  spoon-bill  from  over  the  river 
would  come  to  see  Delilah.  He  loved  so 
well — so  hopelessly — that  young  spoon 
bill!  But  Delilah  on  such  a  day  would 
walk  where  the  green  water  was  shallow, 
and  her  thoughts  would  be  with  the 


A   STORY   OF    SPOON-BILLS  143 

young  spoon-bill  who  had  gone  to  her 
heart. 

"And  the  young  spoon-bill  from  over 
the  river  would  come  and  stand  a  little 
way  from  Delilah  under  a  tree  with  broad 
thick  leaves.  How  fine  was  he  to  look 
upon,  with  his  white  feathers  glistening 
like  silver  and  his  eyes  of  topaz! 

"And  Delilah  was  most  adorable  with 
feathers  of  soft,  soft  gray — a  so  soft  gray 
that  one,  if  one  were  human,  would  wish 
to  rest  one's  forehead  upon  the  fluffy 
down  of  her  breast. 

"Then  he  from  over  the  river  —  his 
name  was  Gerald  Spoon-bill — would  say: 
'Delilah,  come  with  me  over  the  river  to 
the  damp  meadows,  where  there  is  a  pool 
with  a  thousand  pond-lilies,  and  fair 
blooms  the  way.  We  should  be  happy 
there,  you  and  I.' 

"But  Delilah  would  say: 'Oh,  go  back 
over  the  river,  Gerald  Spoon-bill!  You  and 


144  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

I  never  should  be  happy  together.  Why 
Jo  you  stand  there  by  the  rubber-tree 
day  after  day?  And  why  do  you  waste 
your  life-nerves  and  your  heart-nerves? 
Why  are  you  not  giving  your  good  heart 
to  some  one  who  can  take  it?' 

'  'But  you  would  be  happy  with  me, 
Delilah,'  he  under  the  dark  leaves  would 
answer  her  eagerly.  'We  will  stand  in 
the  midst  of  a  new  day  and  watch  the  sun 
come  up  out  of  the  sand — we  will  stand 
in  pale  shallows  at  midday — we  will  feel 
our  hearts  beat  high  when  the  lightnings 
come  down  through  branches — we  will  fly 
a  little  in  high  winds — we  will  stand  still 
and  silent  in  the  midst  of  golden  solitudes 
when  the  sun  is  going  off  the  sand — and 
in  all  these  things  my  heart  will  be 
yours.' 

'  'Go  back  over  the  river,  Gerald 
Spoon-bill!'  said  Delilah. 

"But   Gerald    Spoon-bill   felt    that    he 


A   STORY   OF   SPOON-BILLS  145 

loved  so  well  that  he  could  not  go  back 
over  the  river. 

'Tis  not  possible  to  go  back  over  the 
river  when  one's  best-loved  is  standing 
by  herself  in  green  shallows. 

"Then  along  the  bank  from  the  direc 
tion  of  the  date  palms  came  Auden 
Spoon-bill,  he  who  had  gone  to  Delilah's 
heart.  Likewise  he  was  good  to  see — not 
from  the  handsomeness  of  his  feathers  or 
his  eyes,  but  from  the  strength  of  his 
physical  being.  Though,  too,  his  eyes 
were  of  amethyst. 

"Auden  Spoon-bill  went  along  parallel 
to  the  shore  of  the  river  until  he  saw 
Delilah  standing  in  the  pale  green  water. 
Then  he  crossed  over  and  came  toward 
her. 

'There  are  lotus  flowers  blooming 
down  below  where  the  steep  cataract 
breaks  over  stones,'  said  he.  'Delilah, 
will  you  come  with  me  to  eat  some?' 


146  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

1  'Oh,  yes,  I  will  come,'  said  Delilah, 
eagerly. 

"For  she  still  was  elementary  enough 
to  say  things  eagerly. 

"So  they  went  down  to  where  the  lotus- 
flowers  grew,  where  the  steep  cataract 
broke  over  stones. 

"It  so  happened  that  it  was  almost  the 
time  when  the  great  green  river  Nile 
flows  out  over  its  banks  and  makes  all 
wet  with  water  for  miles  around.  At 
such  a  time  it  was  the  custom  of  Spoon 
bills  and  cranes  and  adjutant-birds  and 
others  of  their  ilk,  and  animals  of  divers 
kinds,  to  leave  their  homes  and  move 
away  out  of  reach  of  the  green  and 
purple  flood.  But  no  one  had  thought  of 
moving  yet,  for  it  was  too  early  in  the 
season.  Maren  Spoon-bill  and  Oliver  W. 
Spoon-bill  had  not  even  begun  to  gather 
up  their  household  goods,  nor  had  they, 
as  their  wont  was,  removed  the  black 


A   STORY    OF   SPOON-BILLS  147 

tablet  from  the  head  of  Roland  Spoon 
bill's  grave,  which  was  on  the  very  edge 
of  the  river. 

"The  river-god  is  a  person  of  whims 
like  the  rest  of  us.  And  so  that  year,  on 
the  day  that  Delilah  and  Auden  Spoon 
bill  went  down  the  river  to  eat  lotus 
flowers,  he  gave  vent  to  one  of  them. 
He  thought  to  send  a  premonition  of  the 
yearly  flood  in  the  shape  of  one  beautiful 
green  and  purple  and  white  wave,  one 
which  would  not  go  so  very  far  but  which 
should  be  damaging  in  its  effects. 

'  'Delilah/  said  Auden  Spoon-bill,  'since 
we  are  here  eating  lotus  flowers,  life  is 
very  fine,  isn't  it?' 

'  'Oh,  very  fine — yes,  very  fine,'  said 
Delilah,  and  was  thrilled. 

'You  are  a  so  dear  friend,'  said  Auden 
Spoon-bill. 

'Yes,'    said    Delilah,     and    was     not 
thrilled. 


148  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"  'Life,'  said  Auden  Spoon-bill,  'is 
pretty  fine,  no  matter  how  it  is  arranged.' 

1  'But  life  is  a  very  strange  thing,'  said 
Delilah.  'I  can't  begin  to  tell  you  how 
strange  I  have  found  it.  For  one  thing, 
I  may  have  what  is  not  my  heart's  desire, 
and  what  is  my  heart's  desire  I  may  not 
have.' 

"  'It  is  strange,'  admitted  Auden  Spoon 
bill.  'But  why  have  any  heart's  desires 
aside  from  what  is  already  yours  in  this 
fine,  fair  world?' 

"  'One  can  not  rule  one's  heart,'  cried 
Delilah.  'One's  heart  goes  on  before 
one's  mind  can  stop  to  think.  One's  heart 
rushes  in  before  everything.  One's  heart 
plays  with  brilliant-colored  things  when  all 
else  is  dead-color.  One's  heart  loves ' 

"But  Delilah  never  finished.  Before 
their  eyes  rose  up  a  magnificent  wall — a 
wall  of  water  that  was  fire  and  cloud  and 
silver,  and  in  it  were  ineffable  rainbows 


A   STORY    OF    SPOON-BILLS  149 

of  the  purple  that  gathers  up  the  soul  in 
its  brilliance  and  shows  it  wondrous  pos 
sibilities;  and  in  it  were  lines  of  the  pale 
lavender  that  caresses  the  senses — and 
one  breathes  from  it  almost  a  fragrance 
of  heliotrope;  and  in  it  were  broad  sheets 
of  deep  black  and  dazzling  white  that 
were  of  the  seeming  of  life  and  death; 
and  in  it,  last  of  all,  was  a  world  of  infi 
nite  green:  it  had  come  from  a  place  of 
great  things;  it  had  come  to  a  place 
where  all  went  down  before  it,  where  lives 
exulted  but  shrank  from  it  because  of  its 
green. 

"An  exquisite  whim,  was  that  of  the 
river-god. 

"Delilah  and  Auden  Spoon-bill  gazed 
for  a  brief  moment.  They  saw  the  mag 
nificent  things.  They  saw  death  in  the 
brilliancies,  but  nevertheless  their  spirits 
rose  high.  They  saw  also  a  wild  flight  of 
live  things  before  the  wave.  Delilah 


150  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

beheld  her  family — Lilith  and  the  rest — 
struggling  and  half-covered  with  water, 
and  their  home  made  of  reeds  was  loosed 
from  its  foundations  and  borne  down  the 
river. 

"Presently  the  flood  overtook  them 
selves  and  the  life  of  Delilah  was  merged 
in  water.  She  was  borne  high  on  a  dark 
swell,  and  at  the  turning  was  suddenly 
struck  a  stunning  blow  upon  the  gray  of 
her  breast  by  a  square  black  wooden 
tablet. 

"Before  death  came  to  her  out  of  the 
brilliancies  she  was  conscious  of  several 
things.  She  saw  before  her  eyes  for  an 
instant  with  startling  plainness  the  words 
on  the  tablet,  'Gone  in  the  hey-day  of 
youth  to  his  last  rest.  But  his  virtues  are 
with  us  still.' 

"She  even  fancied  for  the  first  time  that 
she  knew  what  it  meant. 

11  'The  hey-day  of  youth/  she  murmured 


A    STORY    OF   SPOON-BILLS  151 

to  herself,  'is  the  day  I  go  to  eat  lotus 
flowers  with  my  best-beloved — and  virtues 
are  two  eyes  of  amethyst  that  are  with 
me  still  as  I  am  drowning.' 

"Auden  Spoon-bill  was  drowning  to 
gether  with  her. — 

"That's  all  of  the  story,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"Thank  you,"  said  I.  "It  is  lovely  in  its 
quaintness.  What  does  it  mean,  Annabel 
Lee?" 

"Mean?"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 
"I  didn't  say  it  meant  anything." 

"But  I  suppose,"  said  I,  "everything 
that's  true  means  something." 

"Very  likely,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee.  "But  this  story  isn't  true.  I  made 
it  up." 

Because  it  isn't  true,  or  for  some  other 
reason,  the  story  still  runs  in  my  head. 
How  like  my  friend  Annabel  Lee  it  is! 


A    MEASURE    OF   SORROW 

"T)UT  though  you  are  equally  as  beau- 

13     tiful  as  Poe's  Annabel  Lee,"  I  said 

to  my  friend  Annabel  Lee — "and 

half  the  time  I   think  you  are  the  same 

one — still  when  I  read  over  the  poem  in 

my  mind  I  find  differences." 

"You  find  differences, "  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 
I  repeated: 

"  'It  was  many  and  many  a  year  ago, 

In  a  kingdom  by  the  sea, 
That  a  maiden  there  lived  whom  you  may  know 

By  the  name  of  Annabel  Lee. 
And  this  maiden  she  lived  with  no  other  thought 

Than  to  love  and  be  loved  by  me.* 
153 


154  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

The  first  four  lines,"  said  I,  "do  very 
well,  for  it  doesn't  matter  how  long  ago 
you  lived  —  and  who  can  tell?  But — I 
fancy  you  live  with  other  thoughts  than 
that  mentioned." 

"I  fancy  I  do,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

I  repeated: 

"  'I  was  a  child,  and  she  was  a  child, 

In  this  kingdom  by  the  sea; 
And  we  loved  with  a  love  that  was  more  than 
love, 

I  and  my  Annabel  Lee — 
A  love  that  the  winged  seraphs  in  heaven 

Coveted  her  and  me.' 

The  first  line  might  stand,"  said  I,  "for 
you  are  only  fourteen,  and  I  but  one-and- 
twenty — which  is  quite  young  youth  when 
compared  to  the  age  of  the  earth.  But 
the  third  and  fourth  lines  are  appalling. 
And,  alas,  you  are  not  my  Annabel  Lee. 


A   MEASURE    OF   SORROW  155 

Always  you  make  me  feel,  indeed,  that 
nothing  is  mine.  And  no,  surely  the 
winged  seraphs  in  heaven  do  not  envy 
you  and  me  for  anything." 

"If  they  do,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "then  heaven  must  needs  be  very 
poorly  furnished." 

I  repeated: 

11  'And  this  was  the  reason  that  long  ago, 

In  this  kingdom  by  the  sea, 
A  wind  blew  out  of  a  cloud,  chilling 

My  beautiful  Annabel  Lee, 
So  that  her  high-born  kinsman  came 

And  bore  her  away  from  me, 
To  shut  her  up  in  a  sepulcher 

In  this  kingdom  by  the  sea.' 


I  imagine,  times,"  said  I,  "that  a  chill  wind 
has  sometime  come  out  of  a  cloud  by 
night  and  gone  over  you.  No  high-born 
kinsman  comes  to  carry  you  away — but  I 
shiver  at  the  possibility.  Will  a  high- 


156  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

born  kinsman  come  to  carry  you  away — 
shall  you  be  shut  into  a  gray  stone  sepul- 
cher?" 

"No  kinsman,  high-  or  low-born,  is 
coming  to  carry  me  away,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee.  "Kinsmen  do  not  carry 
away  things  that  have  no  intrinsic 
value/' 

"No,  I  believe  they  don't,"  said  I,  and 
felt  relieved. 

I  repeated: 

"  'The  angels,  not  half  so  happy  in  heaven, 

Went  envying  her  and  me, 
Yes!  that  was  the  reason,  (as  all  men  know 

In  this  kingdom  by  the  sea,) 
That  the  wind   came  out  of  the  cloud  by 

night, 
Chilling  and  killing  my  Annabel  Lee.' 

But  no,"  said  I;  "the  angels  in  heaven  are 
surely  more  than  half  so  happy  as  you 
and  I." 

"More  than  half,"  said  my  friend  Anna- 


A  MEASURE   OF   SORROW  157 

bel    Lee.     "They   need    not   send  clouds 
from  heaven  on  that  account." 
I  repeated: 

"  'But  our  love  it  was  stronger  by  far  than  the 
love 

Of  those  who  were  older  than  we, 

Of  many  far  wiser  than  we; 
And  neither  the  angels  in  heaven  above, 

Nor  the  demons  down  under  the  sea, 
Can  ever  dissever  my  soul  from  the  soul 

Of  the  beautiful  Annabel  Lee.' 


If  you  loved  anything,"  said  I,  "  'twould 
be  stronger  by  far  than  that  of  some  who 
are  older,  and  of  very  many  who  may  be 
wiser." 

"I  don't  think  wisdom  and  age  have  to 
do  with  it,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 

"And  the  angels  in  heaven  would  count 
for  very  little  in  it,"  said  I. 

"No,  certainly  not  the  angels  in 
heaven,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 


158  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

"Nor  the  demons  down  under  the  sea?" 
I  asked. 

"I  don't  know  about  them"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

I  repeated: 


"  'For  the  moon  never  beams,  without  bringing 

me  dreams 

Of  the  beatiful  Annabel  Lee; 
And  the  stars  never  rise,  but  I   feel  the  bright 

eyes 

Of  the  beautiul  Annabel  Lee; 
And   so  all   the  night-tide,  I   lie  down  by  the 

side 
Of   my   darling — my  darling — my  life  and  my 

bride 

In  her  sepulcher  there  by  the  sea, 
In  her  tomb  by  the  sounding  sea.' 


The  first  lines,"  said  I,  "are  well-fitting. 
For  you  are  like  to  the  moon  and  stars, 
and  they  are  like  to  you.  You  are  with 
them  in  the  shadow-way.  And  if  you 


A   MEASURE    OF   SORROW  159 

were  out  by  the  sea  in  a  gray  stone  sepul- 
cher  I  should  stay  there  near  you,  in  the 
night-tide  and  the  day-tide.  You  would 
be  there — and  my  heart  would  set  in  your 
direction  still." 

"More  than  it  had  set  before,"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee.  "For  everything 
escheats  to  the  sea  at  last.  Those  per 
sons,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee,  "who 
have  measures  of  sorrow  which  can  be 
joined  with  the  sea  are  the  most  fortunate 
persons  of  all.  Those  measures  of  sorrow 
will  serve  them  well  and  will  stand  them 
in  good  stead  on  days  when  all  other 
things  desert  them.  If  a  measure  of  sor 
row  is  joined  with  the  sea  it  belongs  to 
the  sea — and  the  sea  is  always  there. 

"The  sea,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee, 
"is  like  a  letter  from  some  one  whom  you 
have  written  to  after  a  long  silence, 
who  you  thought  might  be  dead. 

"The  sea  is  the  measure  of  sorrow,  and 


I6O  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

the  measure  of  sorrow  is  the  sea.  Having 
once  had  a  measure  of  sorrow  joined  with 
the  sea,  your  measure  of  sorrow  will 
never  be  separated  from  the  sea. 

"The  measure  of  sorrow  will  sink  all  of 
its  woe  deep  into  the  sea,  and  the  sea  will 
be  of  the  same  color  with  it.  For  a 
measure  of  sorrow  is  sufficient  to  color  a 
great  sea. 

"The  sea  will  give  to  the  measure  of 
sorrow  a  bit  of  wild  joy.  There  is  no  joy 
in  the  world  like  that  of  the  sea — for 
there  is  enough  in  it  to  come  out  and 
touch  all  things  in  life,  and  life  itself. 
And  the  wild  joy  will  stop  short  only  of  a 
scene  of  death.  If  a  life  is  joined  with 
the  sea,  in  spite  of  all  the  weariness,  all 
the  anguish,  all  the  heavy-days  of  unrest, 
and  all  the  futile  struggling  and  wasting 
of  nerves,  there  will  yet  be  a  wild  joy  in  it 
all,  and  thrill  after  thrill  of  triumph  in 
extreme  moments. 


A   MEASURE   OF   SORROW  l6l 

"Those  measures  of  sorrow  that  are  not 
joined  with  the  sea  must  do  for  them 
selves. 

"And  for  these  reasons,  those  persons 
who  have  measures  of  sorrow  that  can  be 
joined  with  the  sea  are  the  most  fortunate 
persons  of  all." 


A    LUTE    WITH    NO    STRINGS 

THE   most   astonishing    thing    about 
my   friend   Annabel    Lee   is    that, 
young  as  she  is,  she  seems  except 
for   some   thing  in  the  past  to  be  abso 
lutely  in  the  present.     She  does  not  build 
up  for  herself  things  in  the  future.    The 
future  is  a  thing  she  looks  upon  with  con 
tempt.     She  has  not  a  use  for  it — except 
perhaps  to  help  form  a  bitter  sentence  of 
words. 

The  present  she  finds  before  her,  and 
she  lifts  it  up  and  places  it  upon  a  table 
before  her  and  opens  it  as  if  it  were  a 
book — a  book  with  but  two  pages.  She 
seems  to  find  symbols  and  figures  and 
faint  suggestions  upon  these  two  pages 
from  which  she  derives  a  multitude  of 
163 


1 64  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

ideas  and  fancies  and  material  to  make 
bitter  sentences  of  words. 

It  seems  to  interest  her,  and  it  interests 
me  to  rare  degrees. 

She  dwells  upon  the  present. 

She  talks  of  things  in  the  present  with 
inflections  of  voice  that  are  in  sharp  con 
trast  to  the  sentiments  she  utters.  The 
while  the  expression  of  her  face  is 
inscrutable.  Taken  by  and  large,  she  is 
an  inscrutable  person.  I  wonder  while  I 
listen,  does  she  herself  believe  these 
things? — or  is  she  talking  to  amuse  her 
self?  But  perforce  I  feel  a  vein  of  truth 
in  each  thing  that  she  says.  I  look  hard 
at  her  to  discover  signs  of  irony  or  insin 
cerity — but  I  can  but  feel  a  vein  of  rancor 
ous  truth,  or  a  vein  of  friendly  truth,  or  a 
vein  of  ancient  truth,  or  curious. 

Then,  as  she  is  talking  and  in  the  same 
moment  I  am  wondering,  I  consider: 
What  matters  it  whether  or  not  any  of  it 


A   LUTE   WITH    NO    STRINGS  165 

is  true,  or  whether  or  not  she  believes  it, 
or  whether  or  not  I  can  understand  it— 
since  she  is  saying  it.  Is  she  not  an 
exquisite  person  telling  me  these  things 
in  her  exquisite  voice? 

She  carries  all  before  her  in  the 
world. 

For  she  and  I  make  up  a  small  world. 

If  she  be  not  brilliant  in  her  talking, 
then  that  is  because  that  set  of  sentences 
would  be  ruined  by  brilliancy. 

If  she  be  not  profound  in  her  discours 
ing,  then  that  is  because  her  fancy  at  the 
time  dwells  in  the  light  fantastic  and 
would  be  ruined  by  profoundness. 

If  she  be  not  logical,  that  is  because  she 
is  exquisite,  which  is  quite  beyond  logic. 

Nevertheless,  when  she  says  what  is 
simple  and  plain  and  stupid  the  look  of 
her  face  is  more  than  all  the  look  of  one 
saying  brilliant  things. 

And    when    she    touches   lightly    upon 


1 66  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

one  thin  fancy  and  another  the  look 
of  her  lily  face  is  above  all  things  pro 
found. 

And  when  her  mood  and  its  expression 
are  most  reckless  of  logic  the  look  of  her 
face  is  the  model  of  one  giving  out  plati 
tudes  in  all  open  candor  and  reasonable 
ness. 

I  have  been  led  by  these  looks  of  her 
face  to  see  some  varying  visions  of  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee. 

One  is  a  vision  of  her  as  a  capable, 
elderly  maiden  aunt,  one  who  stands 
ready  in  sickness  and  in  health  to 
do  for  me,  and  cooks  little  meat  pies 
for  me,  and  tells  me  when  I'm  spend 
ing  too  much  money,  and  what  to  do  for 
a  cold. 

One  is  a  vision  of  her  as  a  playful  child- 
companion  who  is  with  me  in  all  my 
summer  days,  and  shares  all  her  quaint 
thoughts  with  me,  and  asks  me  countless 


A   LUTE   WITH    NO   STRINGS  167 

questions  and  accepts  my  dictum  as 
gospel. 

One  is  a  vision  of  her  as  a  sister — one 
of  that  kind  who  has  the  best  of  all 
things  in  life  whilst  I  must  take  the  poor 
things;  one  of  the  kind  that  is  to  be 
married  to  a  count  from  over  the  seas, 
and  I  must  work  and  hurry  to  get  her 
frocks  ready  for  the  wedding — and  then 
go  back  to  live  in  a  small,  dead  village  all 
the  days  of  my  life. 

One  is  a  vision  of  her  as  the  quiet 
martyr-sister  who  comes  at  my  call  and 
retires  at  my  bidding — and  in  this  part 
my  friend  Annabel  Lee  walks  with 
exceeding  beauty. 

One  is  a  vision  of  her  as  a  strong 
elderly  friend  who  stands  between  me 
and  all  icy  blasts,  who  lays  out  my  daily 
life,  who  quiets  my  foolish  excitement 
with  her  calmness  and  wisdom. 

One  is  a  vision  of  her  as  one  who  knows 


1 68  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

no  law,  who  leads  me  in  strange  highways 
and  byways,  and  whose  mind  for  me  is  a 
labyrinth  wherein  I  walk  in  piteous  con 
fusion. 

One  is  a  vision  of  her  as  an  extremely 
wicked  person  whom  I  regard  with  fear, 
whom  it  behooves  me  to  hate,  but  whom 
I  love. 

One  is  a  vision  of  her  as  a  woman  of 
any  age  who  is,  above  all,  uncompromis 
ing  and  unsympathetic.  If  I  am  joyous, 
she  is  placid;  if  I  am  heavy  of  heart,  she 
is  placid;  if  I  am  full  of  anticipation,  she 
is  placid;  if  I  am  in  despair,  she  is  placid. 

One  is  a  vision  of  her  as  a  shadow 
among  shadows.  She  is  not  real,  I  say  to 
myself.  One  day  I  shall  awake  and  find 
her  vanished — without  pain  and  without 
"sadness  of  farewell,"  and  as  if  she  had 
not  been. 

One  is  a  vision  of  her  as  one  who  is  in 
the  world  and  of  the  world,  and  like  the 


A    LUTE   WITH   NO    STRINGS  169 

rest  of  the  world.  And  when  I  contem 
plate  her  thus  my  thought  is,  the  best 
thing  of  all  is  to  be  in  the  world  and  of 
the  world,  and  like  the  rest  of  the  world, 
— to  have  the  quality  of  humanness,  to 
know  the  world  so  well  as  to  be  able  to 
select  the  best  of  its  treasures,  and  to 
make  useful  that  in  it  which  is  useless. 

But  all  these  visions  are  vapory.  There 
is  not  one  of  them  that  is  my  friend  An 
nabel  Lee.  'Tis  the  expressions  of  her  lily 
face  that  give  me  these  visions — not  that 
which  she  says  nor  that  which  she  does. 
In  truth  she  is,  in  some  way,  like  all  the 
visions,  but  each  is  mingled  so  much  with 
herself  that  the  type  is  lost. 

And  my  friend  Annabel  Lee,  though 
she  sits  with  the  book  of  the  two  pages 
open  before  her  and  seems  much  inter 
ested  in  all  that  she  finds  in  it,  has  yet  the 
look  of  one  who,  if  any  one  asked  to 
borrow  the  book  from  her,  would  close  it 


I7O  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

quickly  and  give  it  up  readily  with  no 
regret.  And  after  she  had  given  away 
the  book,  it  seems  as  if  she  would  pick  up 
a  flower  from  somewhere  near,  and  twirl 
the  stem  in  her  thumb  and  finger,  and 
glance  out  the  window. 

Not  that  she  has  a  contempt  for  the 
present  as  for  the  future,  but  that  it 
seems  she  is  not  dependent  on  the  book 
of  the  two  pages  for  her  thought  of  it. 

But  also  there  is  method  in  her  con 
tempt  for  the  future.  For  she  deigns  to 
consider  that  the  future  becomes  the 
present,  as  one  day  follows  after  another. 
But  she  touches  it  not  in  good  faith  until 
it  is  indeed  the  present. 

My  friend  Annabel  Lee,  times,  sits 
playing  upon  a  little,  old  lute. 

"The  future,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 

Lee,  "is  like  a  lute  with  no  strings.     You 

\  cannot  play  upon  such  a  lute  and  fill  the 

]  long,  long  corridors  in  your   brain   with 


A    LUTE    WITH   NO    STRINGS  171 

the  thin,  sweet,  meaningless  music.  You 
can  but  sit  stupidly  staring  into  the  cavity 
and  thinking  how  joyous  will  be  the  music 
that  shall  come  forth  some  day,  as  from 
time  to  time  your  lute  is  strung  with 
strings — whereas  you  might  better  at  that 
moment  go  out  into  your  garden  and  fill 
the  cavity  with  tomatoes  and  make  haste 
with  them  to  market.  And  while  you  sit 
dreaming  over  your  stringless  lute,  in 
your  impatience  you  press  upon  the  stops 
and  press  too  much  and  too  often,  so 
that  when  at  last  your  lute  is  strung  the 
stops  will  not  work  right,  but  will  stick 
fast  in  one  position.  And  when  your  other 
hand  touches  the  strings  there  will  be 
horrible  discord — always  horrible  discord. 

"I  have  never,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "yet  seen  any  one  dreaming  over  an 
unstrung  lute  who  did  not  finger  the 
stops." 

Having  said  this,  my   friend  Annabel 


172  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

Lee  gazed  out  over  my  head  at  the  flat, 
green  Atlantic  sea,  and  her  hand  went 
upon  and  about  her  lute-strings,  and 
there  came  out  music.  And  the  stops 
worked  right,  like  stops  that  had  not 
been  tampered  with  in  the  lute's  unstrung 
days. 

And  the  music  that  came  out  was  like 
yellow  wine  to  the  head,  and  went  not 
only  into  the  corridors  but  into  the 
towers  as  well,  and  low  down  by  the 
moat  and  within  and  without  the  outer 
wall,  and  into  the  dungeon  where  had 
not  been  music  before. 


prnu 

ANOTHER   VISION    OF    MY    FRIEND 
ANNABEL   LEE 

AND  I  have  a  vision  of  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee  as  a  princess  in  a  tall, 
tall  castle  by  the  side  of  the  sea — a 
castle  made  of  dull  red  granite  that  glows 
a  gorgeous  crimson  in  the  light  of  the 
setting  sun. 

And  all  day  long  there  is  no  sign  of  life 
about  the  dull  red  castle,  and  also  the 
winds  are  low  and  the  blue  water  is  very 
quiet.  Far  down  the  shore  are  only  a 
few  gulls  flying,  and  wild  ducks  riding  on 
the  waves. 

There  is  nothing  moving  on  the  jagged 
rocks  for  miles  about  the  red  castle,  but 
there  are  growing  in  crevices  some  wild 
green  weeds  that  are  full  of  fair  sweet 


174  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

life.     And  all  day  the  sky  is  pale  blue. 

The  windows  in  the  red  castle  are  of 
thick,  dark  glass  and  are  grated  and  mul- 
lioned  and  set  about  with  iron.  The  look 
of  these  windows  is  rigid  and  bitter  and 
it  shuts  out  everything  that  is  without. 

The  battlements  of  the  castle  are  high 
and  narrow  and  fearsome-looking  and 
dark  and  very  sullen.  Were  I  upon  the 
battlements  I  would  gladly  plunge  off 
from  them  down  upon  the  rocks,  some 
hundreds  of  feet,  and  be  dashed  to  pieces — 
or  into  the  deep  sea.  But  below  there  is 
a  turret  and  a  belfry,  but  no  bell,  and  the 
turret  is  a  sheltered  and  safe  retreat  look 
ing  out  upon  all.  One  who  had  not  been 
content  before  in  the  world  might  be  at 
last  content  within  the  turret  of  this  tall, 
red  castle  by  the  side  of  the  sea. 

Away  at  the  meeting  of  the  sea  and  the 
sky  there  is  a  narrow  line  that  is  not  pale 
blue  like  the  sky  nor  dark  blue  like  the 


ANOTHER    VISION    OF   ANNABEL   LEE    175 

sea,  but  is  only  pale  thin  air.  And  I  look 
at  it  expecting  to  see— But  in  the  bright 
daylight  I  never  know  what  I  expect  to 
see  in  the  line  of  thin  air  at  the  meeting 
of  the  pale  and  the  dark. 

And  so  then  all  day  everything  is  dead 
quiet,  and  my  friend  Annabel  Lee  is  a 
princess  inside  the  red  castle. 

How  fair  a  princess  is  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee! 

I  fancy  her  in  a  beautiful  white  gown 
embroidered  with  gold  threads.  The 
gown  is  long  and  narrow  and  fits  closely 
about  the  waist,  and  trails  on  the  ground. 
And  upon  the  left  forefinger  of  the  prin 
cess  a  great  old  silver  ring  set  with  an  un 
polished  turquoise. 

The  rooms  inside  the  red  castle  are  fit 
rooms  for  such  a  princess.  They  are  dark 
and  high  and  narrow,  and  are  adorned 
with  frescoes  and  wall-paintings,  and  the 
thick  windows  of  dark  glass  shine  with 


1 76  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

marvelous,  myriad  coloring  where  the 
light  shows  through.  Before  some  of  the 
windows  bits  of  cut  glass  are  hung,  and 
these  catch  the  sunbeams  and  straightway 
countless  rainbows  fall  upon  the  gown 
and  the  hands  and  the  hair  of  the  princess. 

When  the  sun  sets  a  great  bar  of  deep 
golden  light  falls  from  afar  upon  the  red 
castle,  and  it  becomes  magnificent  with 
crimson.  The  dark  glass  of  the  windows 
glows  like  old  copper.  The  battlements 
are  tipped  with  gold,  and  all  is  like  a 
great  flower  that  has  but  just  bloomed. 

After  the  sun  has  set  and  the  crimson 
has  faded  once  more  from  the  red  castle, 
and  the  copper  from  the  windows,  and 
before  the  light  of  day  has  gone,  the  sea 
and  the  sky  take  on  different  shades  and 
different  meanings,  and  the  gulls  and  the 
wild  ducks  come  up  from  far  down  the 
shore,  and  the  rocks  echo  with  their  wild 
noises.  The  sky  is  full  of  flying  cloud- 


ANOTHER    VISION    OF   ANNABEL   LEE     177 

racks  and  the  water  rises  high  and  has 
crests  of  white  foam. 

But  the  line  at  the  horizon  looks  still  the 
same. 

Then  the  princess  in  her  white  gown 
opens  a  door  high  up  in  the  tall  castle  and 
comes  out  under  the  turret.  She  conies 
forward  to  the  railing  and  leans  upon  it 
with  her  fair  chin  resting  in  her  hand. 

I  see  her  there  across  a  long  stretch  of 
dark  water,  her  white  frock  gleaming  in 
the  pale  light — so  high  up  and  all — and  a 
multitude  of  thoughts  come  upon  me. 

The  princess  looks  at  the  thin  line  of 
sky  opposite  her,  and  looks  so  steadfastly 
that  I  turn  my  eyes  from  her  and  look 
there  also. 

And  now  there  are  manifold  scenes 
there. 

There  is  a  scene  of  a  knight  going  forth 
to  do  battle,  with  his  black  charger  and 
his  shining  steel  armor.  And  he  wears 


178  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

an  orange  plume  in  his  helmet.  His 
going  is  a  brave  thing.  He  is  in  the  ris 
ing  of  his  youth  and  strength.  And  for 
this  reason  I — and  the  princess  on  the 
turret — can  see  him  falling  gloriously  in  a 
fierce  battle,  with  death  in  his  veins,  and 
the  charger  wandering  off  with  no  rider 
into  the  night.  And  the  princess  looks 
with  envy  upon  one  who  can  go  forth  and 
fall  in  battle. 

There  is  a  scene  of  a  young  woman  in  a 
small  room  working  hard  and  persistently 
by  a  dim  light  at  some  exquisitely  fine 
needlework  upon  an  immense  linen  ob 
long.  And  her  shoulders  are  bent  and 
her  eyes  are  strained  and  her  hands  are 
weary  and  her  nerves  shattered  and  cry 
ing  out.  But  she  does  not  leave  off  her 
work.  She  and  her  work  are  like  an  ant 
carrying  away  a  desert  grain  by  grain, 
and  like  one  miserable  person  building  up 
a  pyramid,  and  like  one  counting  all  the 


ANOTHER    VISION    OF   ANNABEL   LEE    I7Q 

stars.  One  does  not  know  whose  is  the 
linen  or  why  she  works,  or  whether  money 
will  be  given  her  for  it.  But  one  may 
know  that  verily  she  will  have  her  re 
ward.  Such  people  working  like  that  in 
small  rooms,  and  all,  with  wearied  nerves, 
always  have  their  reward.  And  the  prin 
cess  on  the  turret  looked  out  at  the  wom 
an  as  if  she  with  her  linen  and  her 
needle  were  the  fortunate  one. 

There  is  a  scene  of  French  Canadians 
cutting  hay  and  raking  it  early  in  the  sum 
mer  afternoon — women  and  men.  The 
day  is  so  beautifully  hot  and  the  perfume 
of  the  grass  is  so  sweet  that  a  tall  red 
castle  by  the  side  of  the  sea  is  the  drear 
iest  place  of  all.  The  princess  looks  out 
from  her  turret  with  desolate  purple  eyes. 
She  looks  at  the  ring  upon  her  forefinger 
— and  together  with  her  I  wonder  why  all 
people  were  not  made  French  Canadians 
making  hay  in  the  fields.  Over  their 


l8o  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL    LEE 

heads  is  the  air  of  the  green  French 
Canadian  country;  under  their  feet  is  the 
soft  French  Canadian  hay.  And  they 
have  appetites  for  their  food. 

There  is  a  scene  of  a  child  playing  in 
the  mud  under  a  green  willow.  She  has 
a  large  pewter  spoon  to  dip  up  great 
lumps  of  mud,  and  she  takes  up  the 
lumps  in  her  two  hands  and  pats  them 
and  shapes  them  and  lays  them  down  in 
rows  on  a  shingle.  Water  runs  down 
through  the  meadow  near  by  where  she 
sits  and  she  dips  it  up  also  in  the  spoon  to 
thin  out  the  mud.  The  rows  of  mud- 
cakes  on  the  shingle  are  very  neat  and 
arranged  with  infinite  care.  The  princess 
forgets  to  envy  the  child  and  her  mud- 
cakes  in  the  interest  she  takes  in  the  mak 
ing  of  them.  Her  face  and  her  purple 
eyes  even  take  on  an  indefinite  look  of 
contentment  in  that  she  is  in  the  same 
world  with  so  fit  a  thing. 


ANOTHER   VISION    OF   ANNABEL   LEE     l8l 

Having  looked  long  at  the  visions  the 
princess  takes  her  eyes  from  the  line  of 
thin  sky  and  looks  down  into  the  tumbled 
dark  water. 

When  all  is  seen,  says  the  princess,  there 
is  nothing  better  than  wild,  dark  water 
that  is  too  vast  to  be  measured  and  that 
is  good  for  a  thousand  of  years,  and  that 
contains  yet  as  good  fish  as  ever  came 
out  of  it.  It  gives  up  pink  shells  upon  the 
sand  in  the  kindness  of  its  heart,  and  it 
sends  wild  whistling  gales  up  to  the  pin 
nacles  of  my  red  castle  to  sing  for  me  and 
to  tell  me  many  stories.  And  it  has  wild 
winds  wandering  in  and  upon  the  high 
walls  and  caves  along  its  rugged  coast— 
and  if  I  knew  not  that  they  were  winds  I 
would  surely  think  them  the  voices  of 
sea-maids  singing — high,  thin,  piercing 
voices  mingled  with  the  sound  of  long, 
washing  waves.  And  it  gives  out  dreary 
lonesome  cries — a  loon  calling  in  the  night 


1 82  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

mists  a  mile  away,  and  wild  geese  honk 
ing — so  that  I  know  there  are  things  in  it 
and  upon  it  a  hundred  times  wilder  and 
lonesomer  than  I.  And  it  sends  good 
ships  driving  against  these  great  rocks, 
and  dashes  them  to  pieces,  and  human 
beings  go  down  with  them  to  rest  for  a 
thousand  of  years  in  the  depths,  so  that  I 
know  it  loves  human  beings  well,  and  has 
need  of  them.  In  the  forenoon  of  a  day 
in  July  it  melts  my  heart  with  its  glad, 
warm  sunshine  and  dazzles  my  eyes  and 
fills  me  with  comfort — and  I  know  that 
life  is  a  safe  thing.  When  all  is  seen, 
says  the  princess,  there  is  nothing  better. 

Thus  I  have  a  vision  of  my  friend  An 
nabel  Lee  as  a  princess  in  a  tall,  red 
castle  by  the  side  of  the  sea. 

But  neither  is  this  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee.  For  she  is  more  fascinating  still, 
and  her  castle  is  even  taller,  and  a  deeper 
red — and  more  than  all  she  is  herself. 


THE    ART    OF    CONTEMPLATION 

YESTERDAY  my  friend  Annabel  Lee 
and    I    sat    comfortably    opposite 
each  other  at  a  small  table,  eating 
our  luncheon.      She    was   very   fair   and 
good-natured — and  we    had   tiny   broiled 
fish,  and  some  tea  with  slices  of  lemon  in 
it,  and  bread,  and  green  lettuce  sprinkled 
over  with  vinegar  and  oil  and  red  pep 
per,  and  two  mugs  of  ale. 

"Food    is    a    lovely   thing,   don't    you 
think?"  said  I. 

"One  of  the  best  ever  invented,"  said 
my  friend  Annabel  Lee.  "Have  you  con 
sidered  how  much  would  be  gone  from 
life  if  there  were  no  food,  and  if  we  had 
not  to  eat  three  times  every  day?" 
183 


184  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"Yes,  I've  considered  it,"  I  replied, 
"and  it's  a  pleasure  that  never  palls." 

"It  is  so  much  more  than  pleasure," 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee.  "It  is  a 
necessity  and  an  art  and  a  relaxation  and 
an  unburdening — and,  dear  me,  it  brings 
one  up  to  the  level  of  kings  or  of  the 
beasts  that  perish. 

"I  have  fancied,"  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee,  "a  deal  table  set  three  times 
every  day  under  a  beautiful  yew-tree  in  a 
far  country.  The  yew-tree  would  be  in  a 
pasture  where  cattle  are  grazing,  and 
always  when  I  sat  eating  at  the  deal  table 
the  cows  would  stand  about  watching  me. 
Sometimes  on  the  deal  table  there  would 
be  brown  bread  and  honey;  sometimes 
there  would  be  salt  and  cantaloupe;  some 
times  there  would  be  lettuce  with  vinegar 
and  pepper  and  oil;  sometimes  there 
would  be  whole-wheat  bread  and  curds 
and  cream  in  a  brown  earthen  dish; 


THE    ART   OF   CONTEMPLATION  185 

sometimes  there  would  be  walnuts  and 
figs;  sometimes  there  would  be  two  little 
broiled  fish;  sometimes  there  would  be 
peaches;  sometimes  there  would  be  flat 
white  biscuits  and  squares  of  brown 
fudge;  sometimes  there  would  be  bread 
and  cheese;  sometimes  there  would  be 
olives  and  Scotch  bannocks;  sometimes 
there  would  be  a  blue  delft  pot  of  choco 
late  and  an  egg;  sometimes  there  would 
be  tea  and  scones;  sometimes  there  would 
be  plum-cake;  sometimes  there  would  be 
bread  and  radishes;  sometimes  there 
would  be  wine  and  olives;  sometimes 
there  would  be  a  strawberry  tart. 

"I  should  live  over  the  hill  from  the 
yew-tree,  and  I  should  come  there  to  eat 
at  seven  o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  at 
one  in  the  afternoon,  and  at  seven  in  the 
evening.  And  meanwhile  I  should  be 
busy  at  some  work  so  that  my  eating 
would  be  as  if  I  had  earned  it." 


1 86  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"What  sort  of  work  would  you  do?"  I 
asked. 

"I  might  wash  fine  bits  of  lace,  "said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee,  "and  lay  them  out 
upon  a  sunny  grass-plot  to  bleach  and 
dry.  Or  I  might  pick  berries  and  take 
them  to  market.  Or  I  might  sit  in  a  door 
way  making  baskets — I  should  make 
beautiful  little  baskets.  Or  I  might  care 
for  a  small  garden,  or  a  flock  of  geese — 
to  feed  them  with  grains  and  keep  them 
from  straying  away.  'So  many  hours 
must  I  tend  my  flock,  so  many  hours 
must  I  sport  myself,  so  many  hours  must 
I  contemplate' — I  should  do  all  these 
things  while  tending  my  flock,  and  I 
should  tend  my  flock  well.  I  should  do 
all  my  work  well,  so  that  the  food  on  the 
deal  table,  under  the  yew-tree,  would 
taste  as  if  it  had  been  earned. 

"But  would  it  not  be  strange,"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee,  eating  daintily  of 


THE   ART   OF   CONTEMPLATION  187 

lettuce  and  fish,  "after  I  had  had  this  way 
of  living  in  a  country  of  al ways-summer 
for  six  months  or  seven  months — oh,  I 
should  grow  vastly  weary  of  it!  And  not 
only  should  I  grow  weary  of  the  garden 
or  the  geese  or  the  baskets,  and  the  deal 
table  under  the  yew-tree,  but  I  should 
grow  weary  of  everything  the  fair  green 
world  could  anyway  offer.  In  the  so 
many  hours  that  I  should  contemplate  I 
should  arrive  at  this:  there  can  be  noth 
ing  better  in  the  way  of  living  than  car 
ing  for  a  garden  or  a  flock  of  geese,  and 
going  up  a  hill  to  a  yew-tree  to  eat  three 
times  every  day — nothing,  if  I  do  my  work 
faithfully.  So  then  when  the  gray  dawn 
should  break  some  morning  and  I  should 
awaken  and  find  an  aching  at  my  heart,  I 
should  know  that  the  best  had  failed  me, 
and  I  should  see  the  Vast  Weariness  with 
me.  'Hast  thou  found  me  out,  oh,  mine 
enemy!'  would  run  over  and  over  in  my 


1 88  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

mind.  And  all  that  day  the  tending  of 
the  flocks  would  be  a  hard  thing,  and  the 
apples  on  the  deal  table  under  the  yew- 
tree  would  turn  to  dust  in  my  mouth." 

My  friend  Annabel  Lee  laid  down  her 
small  silver  fork,  and  placed  her  hands  one 
upon  another  on  her  knee,  and  sat  silent. 

Oh,  she  was  a  beautiful,  brilliant  per 
son  sitting  there!  I  wondered  hazily  as  I 
watched  her  how  much  of  the  day's  gold 
sunshine  she  made  up  for  me,  and  how 
much  would  vanish  were  she  to  vanish. 

Presently  she  talked  again. 

"Much  depends/  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee,  "upon  the  amount  of  contempla 
tion  that  one  does  in  one's  way  of  living, 
and  upon  how  one's  contemplation  runs. 
Contemplation  is  a  thing  that  does  a  great 
deal  of  mischief.  But  I  daresay  that  when 
it  as  an  art  is  made  perfect  it  is  a  rare 
good  thing  and  a  neat,  obedient  servant, 
and  knows  exactly  when  to  enter  the 


THE    ART   OF   CONTEMPLATION  189 

mind  and  when  to  leave  it.  And  whoso 
ever  may  have  it,  thus  brought  to  a  state 
of  perfection,  is  a  most  fortunate  pos 
sessor  and  must  need  go  bravely  down 
the  world. 

"Perhaps,  now,"  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee,  "when  one  is  a  goose-girl  and 
goes  to  eat  at  a  deal  table  under  a  green 
yew-tree,  one  should  contemplate  only 
kings  in  gilded  palaces  One  should  be 
gin  at  the  beginning  of  a  king's  life,  it 
may  be,  and  follow  it  step  by  step 
through  heaviness  and  strife  until  one 
sees,  in  one's  vivid  goose-girl  fancy, 
the  king  at  last  tottering  and  white- 
haired  and  forsaken  toward  his  lonely 
grave. 

"Or  else  one  should  contemplate  the  life 
of  a  laborer  who  must  eat  husks  all  his 
days,  and  is  not  worthy  of  his  hire,  and 
goes  from  bad  to  worse  and  becomes  a 
beggar. 


IQO  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"Or  else  one  should  contemplate  the 
being  of  a  sweet  maid  whose  life  is  a  fair, 
round,  rose  garden,  and  the  thorns  safely 
hidden  and  the  stems  pruned,  and  all. 
And  one  should  likewise  follow  her  step 
by  step  to  her  grave,  or,  if  one  so  fancies, 
to  the  culmination  of  all  happiness  and 
success. 

"For  the  idea  is  that  in  all  one's  con 
templation,  when  one  is  a  goose-girl,  one 
should  contemplate  anything  and  every 
thing  except  the  being  and  condition  of  a 
goose-girl. 

"But  a  better  idea  still,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee,  "would  be  to  not  contem 
plate  at  all,  you  know,  but  eat  the  rad 
ishes  and  other  things,  under  the  yew- 
tree,  and  rejoice. 

"At  any  rate,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "we  need  not  contemplate  now — 
what  with  these  two  little  fishes  and  these 
green,  crisp  leaves." 


THE    ART   OF   CONTEMPLATION  IQI 

She  picked  up  her  small  silver  fork 
again  and  went  to  eating  lettuce. 

And  presently  we  both  lifted  our  mugs 
of  good  ale  and  drank  to  that  which 
would  be  a  better  idea  still. 


xs 

CONCERNING    LITTLE    WILLY  KAATENSTEIN 

I  HAD  one  day  given  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee  the  bare  outline  of  the  facts 
in   a   case,  and    I   asked    her   if  she 
would  kindly  make  a  story  from  it  and 
tell  it  me. 

So  my  friend  Annabel  Lee  told  me  a 
little  story  that  also  runs  in  my  mind, 
someway,  in  measure  and  rhythm. 

'There  lived  in  a  town  in  Montana," 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee,  "not  very 
long  ago,  in  a  quiet  street,  a  family  of 
that  sort  of  persons  which  is  called  Jew 
ish.  And  it  is  so  short  a  time  ago  that 
they  are  there  yet. 

"Their  name  was  Kaatenstein. 
'There  was  Mrs.  Kaatenstein  and  Mr. 
Kaatenstein  and  the  four  young  children, 
'93 


194  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

Harry  Kaatenstein  and  Leah  Kaatenstein 
and  Jenny  Kaatenstein  and  little  Willy 
Kaatenstein. 

"And  there  was  the  hired  girl  whose 
name  was  Emma. 

"And  there  was  Uncle  Will,  Mrs.  Kaat- 
enstein's  brother,  who  lived  with  them. 

"Mrs.  Kaatenstein  was  short  and  dark 
and  sometimes  quite  cross,  and  she  always 
put  up  fruit  in  its  season,  with  the  help  of 
the  hired  girl,  and  the  kitchen  was  then 
very  warm. 

"And  Mr.  Kaatenstein  was  also  dark, 
but  was  a  tall,  slim  man,  and  was  kind 
and  fond  of  the  children,  especially  the 
two  little  girls.  Mrs.  Kaatenstein  was 
fond  of  the  children  also,  but  mostly  fond 
of  the  two  boys. 

"And  Harry  Kaatenstein  was  much  like 
his  mother,  only  he  was  not  so  dark,  and 
he  was  ten  years  old. 

"And  Leah  Kaatenstein  was  ten  years 


LITTLE    WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  195 

old  also — the  two  were  twins — and  she 
had  an  eye  for  strict  economy,  and  wore 
plain  gingham  frocks,  and  had  a  long 
dark  braid  of  hair,  and  played  with  very 
homely  dolls. 

"And  Jenny  Kaatenstein  was  seven 
years  old  and  was  most  uncommonly  fat, 
and  was  rarely  seen  without  a  bit  of  un 
leavened  bread  in  her  hand — for  the  chil 
dren  were  allowed  to  have  all  that  they 
wanted  of  unleavened  bread.  They  did 
not  want  very  much  of  it,  except  Jenny. 
And  they  all  preferred  to  eat  leavened 
bread  spread  with  butter  and  sprinkled 
with  sugar — but  they  couldn't  have  as 
much  as  they  wanted  of  that. 

"And  little  Willy  Kaatenstein  was  only 
four  and  pronounced  all  his  words  cor 
rectly  and  seemed  sometimes  possessed 
of  the  wisdom  of  the  serpent.  He  had 
very  curly  hair,  and  it  seemed  an  unwrit 
ten  law  that  whenever  a  grown-up  lady 


1 96  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

passed  by  and  saw  the  children  playing 
on  the  walk  in  front  of  their  house  she 
must  stop  and  exclaim  what  a  pretty  boy 
little  Willy  was  and  ask  him  for  one  of  his 
curls.  Whereat  little  Willy  would  stare 
up  into  the  grown-up  lady's  face  in  a  most 
disconcerting  fashion  and  perhaps  ask  her 
for  one  of  her  curls.  Or  if  the  grocery- 
man  or  the  butcher  would  stop  on  his  way 
to  the  kitchen  and  ask  little  Willy  what 
was  his  name  and  how  old  was  he,  little 
Willy  would  answer  with  surprising 
promptness,  and  directly  would  ask  the 
groceryman  or  the  butcher  what  was  his 
name  and  how  old  was  he. 

''And  Emma,  the  hired  girl,  was  raw- 
boned  and  big-fisted  and  frightfully  cold 
blooded  and  unsympathetic.  And  she 
had  a  sister  who  came  to  see  her  and  sat 
in  the  hot  kitchen  talking,  while  Emma 
pared  potatoes  or  scrubbed  the  floor. 
The  sister's  name  was  Juley,  and  she  some- 


LITTLE   WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  197 

times  brought  strange,  green  candy  to  the 
children,  which  their  mother  never  al 
lowed  them  to  eat.  And  sometimes  Juley 
brought  them  chewing-gum,  which  they 
were  not  allowed  to  chew. 

"And  Uncle  Will  was  a  short,  stout 
man,  with  a  face  that  was  nearly  always 
flushed.  He  seemed  fond  of  beer.  There 
were  a  great  many  cases  of  beer  in  the 
cellar  which  belonged  to  Uncle  Will. 
And  there  were  cases  full  of  beer-bottles 
that  had  all  been  emptied,  and  the  chil 
dren  would  have  liked  to  sell  the  bottles, 
but  they  were  not  allowed  to  sell  bottles. 
Uncle  Will  was  also  fond  of  little  Willy, 
and  on  summer  evenings  when  he  and 
Mr.  Kaatenstein  were  at  home,  and  after 
they  had  eaten  dinner,  Uncle  Will  might 
have  been  heard  inviting  little  Willy,  in 
his  hoarse,  facetious  voice,  to  come  and 
have  a  glass  of  beer  with  him.  And  when 
little  Willy,  with  his  short  curls  and  his 


198  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

small  white  suit,  would  come  and  just 
taste  of  the  beer  and  would  make  a  wry 
mouth  and  shed  a  few  abortive  tears  over 
its  bitterness,  Uncle  Will  would  laugh 
very  heartily  and  jovially  indeed. 

"Mrs.  Kaatenstein  had  a  great  many 
ducks  and  geese  in  the  back-yard  and 
spent  much  time  among  them,  fattening 
them  to  eat  and  fussing  over  them,  in  the 
forenoons.  So  the  children  never  played 
there  in  the  forenoon. 

"There  were  a  great  number  of  things 
that  the  Kaatenstein  children  were  not 
allowed  to  do  —  the  things  they  were 
allowed  to  do  were  as  nothing  by  com 
parison,  and  the  things  they  were  allowed 
to  do  were,  for  the  most  part,  things  they 
did  not  care  about. 

"They  had  each  a  square  iron  bank  in 
which  were  ever  so  many  silver  quarters 
and  dimes  and  half-dollars  and  nickels 
and  gold  pieces,  too,  for  they  were  a 


LITTLE    WILLY    KAATENSTEIN 

Jewish  family.  Their  father  and  their 
Uncle  Will  kept  dropping  coins  into  the 
little  slits  in  the  tops  of  the  banks  from 
time  to  time,  and  friends  of  the  family 
would  also  kindly  contribute,  and  their 
uncles  and  aunts  would  send  money  for 
that  purpose  all  the  way  from  Cincinnati. 
So  there  was  wealth  in  these  banks,  but  the 
children  were  not  allowed  to  have  any  of 
it.  And  they  were  never  given  any  money 
'to  throw  away  buying  things,'  as  their 
mother  said,  except  a  nickel  once  in  a  long 
while — one  nickel  for  the  four  of  them. 

"And  there  were  toys  that  their  father 
and  mother  and  Uncle  Will  had  bought 
for  them,  and  others  that  were  sent  by 
the  uncles  and  aunts  in  Cincinnati,  but 
they  were  never  allowed  to  play  with 
them.  The  toys  were  kept  in  a  large 
black-walnut  bureau  in  their  mother's 
bed-room.  There  was  a  small,  tinkling 
piano  that  Leah  Kaatenstein's  Aunt  Bar- 


2OO  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

bara  had  sent  to  her,  or  that  had  been 
sent  to  her  parents  in  trust  for  her.  And 
there  was  a  little  engine,  that  would  run 
on  a  track,  which  had  once  been  given  to 
Harry  Kaatenstein.  And  there  was  an 
immense  wax  doll  which  had  fallen  to 
Jenny  Kaatenstein's  lot.  And  little  Willy 
Kaatenstein  was  the  reputed  owner  of  a 
small  mechanical  circus  with  tiny  wooden 
acrobats  and  horses  and  a  musical  box 
beneath  the  platform.  And  there  were 
other  toys  of  all  kinds;  for  the  relatives 
in  Cincinnati  had  been  lavish.  But  the 
children  were  not  allowed  to  make  use  of 
them,  so  they  languished  in  the  black-wal 
nut  bureau. 

"And  Harry  Kaatenstein  had  a  fine 
gold  watch  that  his  mother  had  given 
him,  but  he  was  not  allowed  to  wear  it  or 
even  look  at  it.  It  was  kept  in  a  jewel- 
case  in  her  bed-room. 

"And  Leah  Kaatenstein  had  a  fine  gold 


LITTLE    WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  2OI 

watch  that  her  grandmother  in  Cincinnati 
had  sent,  but  she  was  not  allowed  to  wear 
it  or  even  look  at  it.  It  was  kept  in  her 
mother's  jewel-case. 

"And  Jenny  Kaatenstein  had  a  fine  gold 
watch  that  her  aunt  Rebecca  had  sent, 
but  she  was  not  allowed  to  wear  it  or 
even  look  at  it.  It  was  kept  in  her 
mother's  jewel-case. 

"And  little  Willy  Kaatenstein  had  a 
fine  gold  watch  that  Uncle  Will  had 
bought  for  him — and  Uncle  Will,  who 
was  a  privileged  character  in  the  house, 
would  sometimes  take  little  Willy's  watch 
from  Mrs.  Kaatenstein's  jewel-case  and 
give  it  to  little  Willy  to  wear  in  the  even 
ing  when  the  family  was  gathered  in  the 
dining-room.  And  Uncle  Will  would 
drink  his  beer  and  ask  little  Willy  what 
time  was  it.  But  before  Mrs.  Kaatenstein 
put  little  Willy  to  bed  she  replaced  the 
watch  carefully  in  the  jewel-case. 


202  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"The  children  had  a  great  many  such 
possessions,  but  what  they  really  had  to 
play  with  was  a  small,  much-battered 
wagon  which  they  put  to  many  uses  in 
the  course  of  a  day.  Sometimes  it  was  a 
fire-engine,  and  sometimes  a  hose-cart, 
and  sometimes  a  motor-car,  and  some 
times  a  carriage,  and  sometimes  an  ambu 
lance,  and  sometimes  a  go-cart  for  Leah 
Kaatenstein's  homely  dolls  (which  by 
some  strange  chance  were  hers  to  do  with 
as  she  would — they  were  not  of  excessive 
value),  and  sometimes  for  a  patrol  wagon, 
and  sometimes  for  a  water-cart.  They 
had  also  a  little  rocking  chair  with  which 
they  played  house  on  the  porch.  Both 
the  chair  and  the  wagon  were  much  over 
worked  and  were  most  pathetic  in  appear 
ance.  The  children  often  grew  weary  of 
playing  always  with  these  two  things  and 
languished  for  other  amusement.  Some 
times  Leah  Kaatenstein  subsided  into  the 


LITTLE    WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  2O3 

rocking  chair  with  her  homely  dolls  in  her 
lap  and  talked  to  them  seriously,  telling 
them  many  things  which  would  be  of  use 
to  them  all  their  lives  and  instilling  into 
them  strict  rules  of  economy.  And  some 
times  Harry  Kaatenstein  sat  on  the  low 
est  step  of  the  porch  with  the  nozzle  of 
the  long,  rubber  hose,  which  was  attached 
to  the  faucet  at  the  side  of  the  house,  and 
with  which  Mr.  Kaatenstein  or  Uncle  Will 
watered  the  grass  in  the  evening.  The 
children  were  not  allowed  to  water  the 
grass,  but  there  was  usually  water  enough 
trickling  from  the  hose  for  Harry  Kaaten 
stein  to  make  little  whirlpools  on  the 
steps,  which  he  did,  causing  loss  of  life 
among  bugs  of  divers  kinds.  And  some 
times  Jenny  Kaatenstein,  with  her  inevi 
table  bit  of  unleavened  bread,  sat  on  the 
top  step,  moon-faced  and  pudgy,  resting 
from  her  labors.  And  sometimes  little 
Willy  Kaatenstein  climbed  up  and  sat 


2O4  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

upon  the  post  at  the  bottom  of  the  stoop 
and  kicked  it  viciously  with  his  heels.  He 
often  sat  there  kicking,  as  could  be  plainly 
seen  by  the  dents  in  the  post. 

"One  warm  day  the  Kaatenstein  chil 
dren  were  thus  languishing  after  having 
played  hard  with  the  wagon,  and  Emma 
was  ironing  in  the  kitchen.  Their  mother 
was  away  for  the  afternoon  and  the  chil 
dren  had  a  delightful  sense  of  freedom, 
even  with  the  grim,  big-fisted  Emma  in 
charge.  Only  they  wished  they  had  a 
nickel.  Harry  Kaatenstein  said  that  if 
they  had  a  nickel  he  should  certainly  go 
down  to  Grove's,  a  block  and  a  half  away, 
and  purchase  some  brown  and  white 
cookies.  At  which  little  Willy  Kaaten 
stein  and  Jenny  Kaatenstein — more  espe 
cially  Jenny  Kaatenstein — smacked  their 
lips,  and  Leah  Kaatenstein  sighed  and 
remarked  that  Harry's  extravagance  was 
very  discouraging. 


LITTLE   WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  2O5 

"Presently,  wonderful  to  relate,  Emma 
appeared  around  the  corner,  [from  the 
kitchen,  with  four  thick  slices  of  bread- 
and-butter  slightly  sprinkled  with  sugar, 
and  the  children  gazed  very  eagerly  in 
her  direction.  Jenny  Kaatenstein  dropped 
her  piece  of  unleavened  bread  and  half- 
started  to  meet  Emma,  but  thought  bet 
ter  of  it,  knowing  Emma's  ways.  Emma 
distributed  the  slices  of  bread,  and  fast 
ened  little  Willy  Kaatenstein's  hat  on 
more  firmly  .  with  the  elastic  under 
his  chin,  and  informed  the  children 
that  if  they  knew  what  was  good  for 
themselves  they  would  not  get  into 
any  mischief  while  she  had  charge  of  them. 
Then  she  went  back  to  her  ironing. 

"The  children  were  delighted  with  their 
bread-and-butter,  and  their  imagination 
played  lightly  about  it. 

"  'My  bread-and-butter  s  raspberry  ice 
cream/  said  Harry  Kaatenstein. 


2O6  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

1  {My  bread-and -butter's  choc  late  ice 
cream/  said  Leah  Kaatenstein,  waxing 
genial. 

'  'My  bread-and-butter's  vanilla  ice 
cream/  said  Jenny  Kaatenstein. 

"But  little  Willy  Kaatenstein  said  never 
a  word,  for  his  bread-and-butter  seemed 
very  good  to  him  as  bread-and-butter. 

"Their  bread-and-butter  someway  put 
new  life  into  them  and  made  them  more 
fully  awake  to  the  fact  that  their  mother 
was  away  for  the  afternoon.  After  all, 
they  were  not  afraid  of  any  one  but  their 
mother,  and  she  being  gone,  should  they 
not  enjoy  life  for  once? 

"When  they  had  finished  eating  they 
had  a  brilliant  idea. 

'  Tm  going  to  shake  a  nickel  out  of  my 
bank/  said  Harry  Kaatenstein. 

"  Tm  going  to  shake  a  nickel  out  of  my 
bank/  said  Leah  Kaatenstein,  in  surpris 
ing  luxury  of  spirit. 


LITTLE    WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  2O7 

"  '/';;/  going  to  shake  a  nickel  out  of  uiy 
bank,'  said  Jenny  Kaatenstein. 

"And  little  Willy  Kaatenstein  said 
never  a  word,  but  ran  at  the  first  inkling 
of  the  idea  immediately  to  the  dining- 
room  where  the  four  banks  were  stand 
ing,  on  the  mantel  above  the  fire-place, 
and  pushed  up  a  chair  and  took  down  his 
own  green  bank.  And  then  he  slid  back 
the  little  piece  of  iron  that  was  just  under 
the  slot  in  the  top  of  the  bank,  and  shook, 
shook,  shook,  with  very  little  noise,  and 
lo,  not  a  nickel  but  a  five-dollar  gold  coin 
rolled  out  on  the  floor! 

"And  then  Harry  Kaatenstein  and 
Leah  Kaatenstein  and  Jenny  Kaaten 
stein  rushed  in  and  seized  their  banks  and 
began  shaking,  shaking  with  much  clank, 
clank  of  silver  and  gold  against  iron — for 
was  not  their  mother  far  from  them? — 
whilst  little  Willy  Kaatenstein  stood  by 
with  his  gold  piece  clasped  tight  in  his 


208  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

hand.  Even  his  young  intelligence  knew 
its  marvelous  value,  and  he  thought  it 
wise  not  to  reveal  his  treasure  to  Leah 
Kaatenstein's  horrified  gaze. 

"  Tm  going  down  to  Grove's  and  buy 
gum-drops  with  my  nickel/  said  Harry 
Kaatenstein,  pounding  and  shaking,  but 
never  a  nickel  appeared  for  the  reason  that 
he  had  forgotten  the  little  iron  slide, 
which  only  once  in  a  while  fell  away  from 
under  the  slot  and  never  at  the  right 
time. 

"  Tm  going  down  to  Grove's  and  buy  a 
long  licorice  pipe  with  my  nickel,'  said 
Leah  Kaatenstein — a  long  licorice  pipe 
was  the  very  most  she  could  get  for  her 
money — also  shaking  and  pounding  fruit 
lessly,  for  she  too  had  forgotten  the  little 
iron  slide. 

'  Tm  going  down  to  Grove's  and  buy 
some  cookies  with  my  nickel,'  said  Jenny 
Kaatenstein,  likewise  pounding  and 


LITTLE   WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  2OQ 

shaking  and  forgetting  the  little  iron 
slide. 

"And  little  Willy  Kaatenstein  said 
never  a  word,  but  when  he  had  learned 
what  to  buy  with  his  money  he  ran  out  of 
the  front  door  and  down  the  street  to 
Grove's  on  the  corner. 

"Now  when  Harry  Kaatenstein  and 
Leah  Kaatenstein  and  Jenny  Kaatenstein 
considered  and  rejoiced  over  the  absence 
of  their  mother,  they  forgot  at  the  same 
time  to  consider  and  fear  the  perilous 
nearness  of  Emma  ironing  in  the  kitchen 
— the  kitchen  being  next  to  the  dining- 
room. 

"Suddenly  while  they  were  in  the  midst 
of  their  work  and  were  shaking  and 
pounding  away  for  dear  life,  unconscious 
of  all  else,  the  door  leading  into  the 
kitchen  was  pushed  open  with  ominous 
quiet  and  the  head  of  Emma  appeared. 
It  was  an  unprepossessing  head  at  all 


2IO  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

times,  and  it  was  a  dangerous-looking 
head  at  that  moment. 

"Harry  Kaatenstein  and  Leah  Kaaten- 
stein  and  Jenny  Kaatenstein  perceived 
this  vision  at  once,  and  an  appalling 
silence  like  the  tomb  followed  the  clamor 
that  had  been. 

1  'So  this  is  what  you* re  up  to,  you 
young  limbs!'  said  Emma,  and  swooped 
down  and  pounced  upon  them  before 
they  could  possibly  escape,  though  they 
had  made  for  the  door  with  very  credit 
able  speed.  Emma  held  them  with  one 
hand  while  she  picked  up  the  banks  with 
the  other.  She  remarked,  in  unmeasured 
terms,  upon  the  condition  of  the  waxed 
dining-room  floor,  upon  the  vicious  quali 
ties  of  some  children  whom  she  men 
tioned  by  name,  upon  what  would  happen 
to  them  when  their  mother  came  home, 
and  upon  what  was  going  to  happen  to 
them  right  away. 


LITTLE    WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  211 

"And  she  led  them  upstairs  to  their 
mother's  bed-room  and,  after  shak 
ing  them  well,  locked  them  in  and 
went  downstairs,  carrying  the  key  with 
her. 

"Meanwhile  little  Willy  Kaatenstein 
had  gone  upon  his  interesting  errand  at 
Grove's  on  the  corner. 

"He  went  into  the  shop  and  stood  be 
fore  a  glittering  glass  case  of  things. 

11  'And  what'll  it  be  for  Master  Kaaten 
stein  to-day?'  said  the  man  behind  the 
glittering  case. 

1  'I  want  gum-drops  and  licorice 
pipes  and  cookies  —  and  some  water 
melons/  said  little  Willy  Kaatenstein 
and  laid  the  shining  gold  coin  before 
the  grocer's  astonished  eyes,  for  the 
grocer  had  expected  to  see  the  Kaaten 
stein  semi -occasional  nickel  —  nothing 
more  or  less. 

"  'Is   this   yours,  Master    Kaatenstein?' 


212  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

said  the  grocer,  eyeing  the  coin  with  sus 
picion. 

"  'Of  course  it's  mine,'  said  little  Willy 
Kaatenstein,  impatiently.  'And  I  want 
the  things  right  away.' 

1  'Well,  I  suppose  its  all  right,  my  boy/ 
said  the  grocer.  'If  it  isn't,  one  of  us'll 
have  to  suffer,  I  guess.  Now,  what  did 
you  say  you  wanted?' 

"Little  Willy  Kaatenstein  repeated  his 
order,  and  added  other  items. 

"  'Now,  Master  Kaatenstein,'  said  the 
grocer,  'you  never  will  be  able  to  carry  all 
that.  That'll  make  a  pile  of  stuff.  Bet 
ter  run  back  and  get  your  little  wagon' — 
for  he  knew  the  Kaatenstein  wagon,  hav 
ing  often  placed  in  it  a  paper  of  sugar  or 
a  sack  of  salt  or  three  tins  of  something 
according  to  Mrs.  Kaatenstein's  order — 
for  the  children  to  draw  home. 

"So  little  Willy  Kaatenstein  ran  back 
and  got  the  little  wagon  from  the  front 


LITTLE    WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  213 

yard,  and  the  man  loaded  the  things  into 
it.  'Must  be  going  to  have  a  picnic,'  he 
observed. 

"There  was  certainly'  a  pile  of  stuff. 
There  were  long  licorice  pipes  enough  in 
the  wagon  to  surfeit  the  appetites  of  the 
four  Kaatensteins  for  many  a  day,  and 
the  name  of  the  gum-drops  was  legion 
And  there  were  two  watermelons,  and 
cookies  enough  to  satisfy  even  Jenny 
Kaatenstein's  capacious  desire.  Also 
there  were  nuts  and  some  dyspeptic-look 
ing  pies,  and  a  great  many  little  dogs  and 
cats  and  elephants  made  of  a  very  tough 
kind  of  candy  which  all  the  Kaatenstein 
children  thought  perfectly  lovely.  Also 
there  were  figs  in  boxes  and  chocolate- 
drops  and  red  and  white  sticks  of  candy, 
flavored  with  peppermint  fit  to  make  one's 
mouth  water.  And  all  these  things  were 
in  surprising  quantity  and  made  so  heavy 
a  load  that  little  Willy  Kaatenstein  was 


214  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

hard  put  to  it  to  drag  it  up  the  street. 
But  little  Willy  Kaatenstein  had  strong 
little  arms  and  he  and  the  wagon  made 
slow  and  sure  progress  back  to  the  Kaat 
enstein  home.  The  grocer  stood  out  in 
front  of  his  shop  gazing  after  the  boy  and 
the  boy's  wagon  and  the  wagon's  contents 
with  a  puzzled  and  somewhat  dubious 
smile. 

"Little  Willy  Kaatenstein  proceeded 
into  his  front  yard  with  the  wagon  and 
around  to  the  back  on  the  side  of  the 
house  where  the  kitchen  door  was  not. 
He  dragged  the  wagon  quietly  on  to  the 
farther  end  of  the  back  yard  and  opened 
the  gate  of  the  pen  made  of  laths,  where 
Mrs.  Kaatenstein's  ducks  and  geese  were 
kept.  He  drew  the  wagon  in  and  back 
behind  the  duck-house,  and  left  it. 

"Then  little  Willy  Kaatenstein  closed 
the  lath  gate  and  ran  to  find  Harry  Kaat 
enstein  and  Leah  Kaatenstein  and  Jenny 


LITTLE    WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  215 

Kaatenstein  and  invite  them  to  the  feast. 

''But  they  were  nowhere  to  be  found. 
He  hunted  about  in  the  house  and  out  of 
doors,  but  there  was  no  sign  of  them,  and 
for  some  reason  he  thought  he  would  not 
ask  Emma  questions  touching  on  their 
whereabouts. 

"So  having  hunted  for  his  relatives  all 
that  he  thought  best,  little  Willy  Kaaten 
stein  could  but  go  out  on  the  highways 
and  byways  and  call  in  the  lame,  the  halt, 
and  the  blind.  Accordingly  he  slipped 
through  the  fence  and  went  back  into  the 
alley-way  to  the  house  immediately  be 
hind  his  own,  in  search  of  Bill  and  Katy 
Kelly,  two  Irish  friends  of  the  Kaaten 
stein  children — with  whom  they  were  not 
allowed  to  play.  Bill  and  Katy  Kelly,  to 
be  sure,  were  neither  lame  nor  halt  nor 
blind,  but  were  very  sound  in  limb  and 
constitution,  and  were  extremely  respon 
sive  to  little  Willy  Kaatenstein's  invita- 


2l6  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL    LEE 

tion  to  come  to  the  feast.  Feasts  were 
things  that  Bill  and  Katy  Kelly  reveled 
in — when  they  had  opportunity. 

"So  in  company  with  little  Willy  Kaat- 
enstein — he  in  his  curls  and  his  white 
suit,  and  the  two  in  very  dingy  raiment — 
they  hied  them  through  the  fence  to  the 
feast.  They  reached  the  duck-yard  with 
out  being  seen  by  Emma,  the  arch-enemy, 
and  found  the  little  wagon  safe,  and  the 
ducks  and  geese  staring  and  peering  and 
stretching  their  necks  at  it  and  its  con 
tents  with  much  curiosity. 

"This  curiosity,  on  the  part  of  the  fowls, 
must  have  changed  to  amazement  when 
they  beheld  the  attack  made  on  the 
wagon  and  the  strange  things  in  the  way 
of  eating  that  followed. 

"How  Bill  and  Katy  Kelly  did  eat  and 
how  they  reveled!  And  little  Willy 
Kaatenstein  literally  waded  in  gum-drops 
and  long  licorice  pipes.  They  began  the 


LITTLE   WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  217 

feast  with  pie;  from  pie  they  went  at 
figs;  from  figs  they  transferred  to  the 
tough  little  animals;  and  from  that  to 
cookies;  and  from  cookies  to  long  licorice 
pipes.  Then  they  stopped  eating  con 
secutively  and  went  at  the  entire  feast 
hap-hazard. 

"They  ate  fast  and  furiously  for  several 
minutes. 

"Then  the  first  ardor  of  the  feast  sub 
sided,  and  little  Willy  Kaatenstein,  for 
one,  seemed  to  lose  all  interest  not  only 
in  feasts  but  in  the  world  at  large.  He 
sat  back  upon  a  box,  which  contained  a 
duck  sitting  on  twelve  eggs,  and  looked 
at  the  ground  with  the  air  of  one  who  has 
someway  lost  his  perspective. 

"Bill  and  Katy  Kelly  still  ate,  but  more, 
it  seemed,  from  a  sense  of  duty  to  them 
selves  than  from  appetite,  and  presently 
their  eating  became  desultory,  and  they 
began  to  throw  remnants  of  the  feast  to 


2l8  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

the  fowls.  These  at  first  gazed  askance 
at  the  extraordinary  food  thus  lavished 
upon  them — but  finally  went  at  it  madly, 
as  if  they,  too,  reveled  in  feasts. 

"Mrs.  Kaatenstein's  face  must  need 
have  been  a  study  could  she  have  seen 
her  cherished  ducks  and  geese  stuffing 
their  crops  with  licorice  pipes  and  gum- 
drops. 

"But  Mrs.  Kaatenstein  was  out  for  the 
afternoon. 

"While  these  things  were  happening 
in  her  duck-yard,  no  less  interesting  ones 
were  taking  place  up-stairs  in  her  bed 
room,  where  Harry  Kaatenstein  and  Leah 
Kaatenstein  and  Jenny  Kaatenstein  were 
prisoners  of  Emma. 

"At  first  they  merely  sat  on  the  win 
dow-seat  and  discussed  the  several  un 
toward  things  that  they  wished  would 
happen  to  Emma.  Having  hanged, 
drawn  and  quartered  that  liberal-pro- 


LITTLE    WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  2IQ 

portioned  lady  until  they  could  no  more, 
they  felt  better.  Then  they  looked  over 
their  mother's  room  in  search  of  amuse 
ment,  with  the  result  that  the  black-wal 
nut  bureau,  containing  the  toys  with 
which  they  were  not  allowed  to  play,  was 
made  to  give  forth  the  wealth  of  its  treas 
ures.  The  floor  of  Mrs.  Kaatenstein's 
bed-room  presented  a  motley  appearance. 
Jenny  Kaatenstein  even  forgot  to  miss 
her  bit  of  unleavened  bread  in  her  ex 
citement  over  the  fact  that  she  actually 
was  holding  her  own  huge  wax  doll  in  her 
lap.  And  the  circus  and  the  steam-engine 
and  the  tinkling  piano  and  the  tea-sets 
and  the  barking  dogs  and  the  picture 
books  and  the  manifold  other  things  were 
at  last  put  to  those  uses  for  which  they 
had  been  destined.  And  they  even  went 
to  the  jewel-case  and  got  out  their 
watches. 

''But    Harry    Kaatenstein    and     Leah 


22O  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

Kaatenstein  and  Jenny  Kaatenstein, 
though  they  were  pleasantly  excited, 
were  yet  highly  uneasy  in  their  minds. 
They  knew  they  had  yet  to  render  up 
payment  for  the  day's  business. 

"The  rest  of  the  tale  is  obvious  enough/' 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee,  laughing 
gently  and  changing  her  tone. 

"But  please  tell  it,"  said  I,  with  much 
eagerness. 

"Well,  then,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee:— 

"The  afternoon  waned,  and  Mrs.  Kaat 
enstein  came  home.  She  heard  unusual 
noises  in  her  beloved  duck-yard,  and  fled 
thither,  as  fast  as  her  goodly  proportions 
would  allow. 

"Her  eyes  met  a  sight  which  was  mad 
dening  to  them. 

"They  beheld  little  Willy  Kaatenstein, 
looking  decidedly  pale  and  puffy,  sitting 
weakly  on  a  box  containing  a  setting- 


LITTLE   WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  221 

duck — and  the  two  objectionable  Kelly 
children  actually  at  that  moment  feeding 
her  choicest  goose  with  gum-drops. 
Scattered  all  about  the  once  neat  duck 
yard  was  rubbish  in  frightful  variety,  and 
a  half-dozen  of  her  tiny  ducklings  were 
busy  at  an  atrocious  watermelon.  Cer 
tainly  no  one  but  those  Irish  young  ones 
could  have  brought  in  so  much  litter.  It 
did  not  take  Bill  and  Katy  Kelly  long  to 
gather  that  they  were  not  wanted  there. 
Mrs.  Kaatenstein  quite  quenched,  for  the 
time,  their  fondness  for  feasts.  As  they 
went,  she  ordered  them  to  take  their  vile 
belongings  with  them,  which  they  were 
willing  enough  to  do — as  much  of  them  as 
they  could  carry.  They  bestowed  an  appre 
hensive  glance  on  little  Willy  Kaaten 
stein — but  little  Willy  Kaatenstein's  face 
was  only  pale,  puffy  and  very  passive. 
Having  dispersed  the  Kellys,  Mrs.  Kaat 
enstein  led  her  son  into  the  house  and 


222  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

stopped  in  the  kitchen  to  demand  of 
Emma  why  she  allowed  such  things  to 
happen,  and  ordered  her  to  go  at  once 
and  clean  out  the  duck-yard.  Emma 
obeyed,  first  giving  up  Mrs.  Kaaten- 
stein's  bed-room  key  and  explaining  her 
own  possession  of  it. 

"Then  Mrs.  Kaatenstein,  after  doctor 
ing  little  Willy  Kaatenstein's  poor  little 
stomach  and  laying  him  neatly  out  on  a 
sofa  in  a  cool,  dark  room,  went  on  to  her 
own  room,  whence  proceeded  unusual 
noises.  Unlocking  and  opening  the  door, 
a  sight  the  like  of  which  she  had  not  of 
late  years  known  overwhelmed  her  spirit. 

"The  short,  dead  silence  that  followed 
her  appearance  on  the  threshhold  was 
but  emphasized  by  the  merry  tinkling  of 
the  gay  little  circus  which  had  been 
wound  up  and  would  not  stop,  even 
under  the  dark  influence  of  impending 
tragedy 


LITTLE    WILLY    KAATENSTEIN  223 

"Well,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee, 
"the  case  of  Harry  Kaatenstein  and  Leah 
Kaatenstein  and  Jenny  Kaatenstein  was 
attended  to  by  their  mother.  She 
whipped  them  all  soundly  and  sent  them 
to  bed. 

"But  as  for  little  Willy  Kaatenstein — not 
looking  in  the  least  pale  or  puffy,  he 
sat  that  evening,  after  dinner,  on  Uncle 
Will's  lap,  wearing  his  own  fine  gold 
watch  out  of  the  jewel-case,  and  being 
continually  invited  to  have  a  glass  of  beer. 

"But  in  the  kitchen,  Emma  was  telling 
Juley  that  though  she  had  once  thought 
a  great  deal  of  little  Willy  Kaatenstein 
she  now  honestly  believed  him  to  be  the 
very  worst  one  of  the  four. 

"That  story,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "was  very  tiresome.  You  shouldn't 
ask  me  to  tell  you  stories." 

"I  am  sorry  if  it  tired  you,"  I  said.  "But 
the  story  was  entirely  fascinating.  It  was 


224  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

exactly  like  the  Kaatensteins.  And  you, 
telling  a  story  of  the  Kaatensteins,  are 
delicately,  oh,  delicately  incongruous!" 

"Were  you  ever  at  a  feast  in  the  Kaaten- 
stein  duck-yard?"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

"Yes,  indeed,"  said  I,  "along  with  Bill 
and  Katy  Kelly,  at  the  age  of  eleven. 
And  I  have  seen  every  toy  in  the  black- 
walnut  bureau."  "And  which  would  you," 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee,  "to  be  at  a 
feast  with  the  Kaatensteins  at  the  age  of 
eleven,  or  here,  now,  with  rne?" 

"When  all's  said,"  said  I,  "here  with 
you,  now,  by  far." 

'Tis  very  good  of  you,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee,  and  looked  at  me  with  her 
purple  eyes. 


fff 

A    BOND    OF    SYMPATHY 

HAVING  told  me  stories,  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee  demanded  that  I 
should  write  a  bit  of  verse  to  read 
to  her. 

My  verse  is  rather  rotten  verse,  and  I 
told  her  so.  She  replied  that  the  fact  of 
its  being  rotten  had  but  little  to  do  with 
the  matter,  that  most  verse  was  rotten, 
anyway,  and  usually  the  more  rotten  the 
better  it  suited  the  reader. 

She  was  in  that  mood. 

So  I  wrote  some  lines  and  read  them 
to  her — there  was  nothing  else  to  do. 
She  had  been  kind  in  telling  me  stories, 
though  probably  she  told  them  because  it 
amused  her.  When  I  finished  reading, 

she  said  that  the  verse  was  not  rotten  at 
225 


226  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

all.  She,  for  her  part,  would  call  it  not 
yet  quite  ripe. 

"That's  the  verse"  said  my  friend  Anna 
bel  Lee.  "As  for  the  meaning  of  the 
words  in  it,  that  betrays  many  things. 
The  most  vivid  thing  it  betrays  is  your 
age.  It  shows  that  you  have  passed 
over  the  period  of  nineteen  and  have 
arrived  at  exactly  one-and-twenty.  And 
therefore  it  is  a  triumphant  bit  of 
verse. 

"Don't  you  know,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee,  "how  much  verse  there  is 
thrown  upon  the  world  that  means  noth 
ing  whatsoever?  And  so  when  one  does 
happen  upon  a  bit  of  it  that  tells  even  the 
smallest  thing,  like  the  height  of  the 
writer,  or  the  color  of  his  hair,  then  one 
feels  repaid. 

"And  your  verse  tells  still  other  things," 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee.  "One  is 
that  you  still  think,  as  we've  agreed  once 


A    BOND    OF    SYMPATHY  227 

before,  of  that  which  will  one  day  open 
wondrously  for  you." 

"I  did  not  agree  to  that,  you  know," 
said  I. 

"Well,  then,  I  agreed  to  it  for  both  of 
us,"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee.  "And 
your  verse  betrays  that  so  plainly  that 
one  is  led  to  feel  that  there  are  persons 
who  grow  more  hopeful  with  each  bit  of 
darkness  that  comes  to  them.  If  your 
life  were  all  fire  and  sunshine  you  would 
write  very  different  verse.  And  if  it  told 
anything  at  all  it  would  tell  that  while 
you  looked  forward  to  still  more  fire  and 
sunshine,  you  would  somehow  know  you 
were  not  really  to  have  any  more,  but 
that  it  would  grow  less  and  less  in  the 
years,  and  by  the  time  you  were  an  old 
lady,  and  still  not  nearly  ready  to  die,  it 
would  give  out  entirely." 

"That  would  be  by  the  law  of  compen 
sation,"  said  I.  "And  it  would  require 


228  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

a  great  deal  of  fire  and  sunshine  in  her 
early  life  to  compensate  any  one  who  had 
grown  into  an  old  lady  and  had  run  out 
of  it." 

"So  it  would,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee.  "Now,  when  you  grow  old — though 
you  will  never  be  that  which  is  called 
an  old  lady — you  will  be  quite  mellow. 
And  probably  the  less  you  have  to  be 
mellow  over,  the  mellower  you  will 
be." 

"I  don't  wish  to  be  that  way,"  said  I. 
"I  think  that  kind  of  person  is  pitiful,  liv 
ing  year  after  year." 

"You'll  not  be  pitiful,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee.  "You  can  not  be  mellow 
and  pitiful  at  the  same  time.  It  may  be 
that  to  be  mellow  is  the  best  thing,  and 
the  most  comfortable.  It  maybe  that 
people  struggle  through  a  long  life  with 
but  one  object  in  their  minds — to  be  mel 
low  in  their  old  age.  This  verse  certainly 


A   BOND   OF   SYMPATHY  22Q 

sounds  as  if  you  were  looking  forward 
to  it." 

"I  can't  see  that  it  sounds  that  way,  at 
all,"  said  I. 

"Of  course  you  can't,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee.  "You  wrote  the  verse,  and 
you  are  but  you." 

"And  what  are  some  of  the  other  things 
that  it  betrays?"  I  inquired. 

"It  betrays,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "that  you  are  better  in  detail  than 
you  are  in  the  entire.  And  if  that  is  true 
of  you  in  one  thing  it  is  true  of  you  in 
everything.  I  daresay  your  friends  find 
things  in  you  that  they  like  extremely, 
but  you  in  the  entire  they  look  upon 
as  something  that  has  much  to  ac 
quire." 

"Not  my  friends!"  said  I. 

"Yes,  your  friends"  said  my  friend  An 
nabel  Lee. 

"That  is  a  bitter  thing  for  a  verse  to 


230  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

show,"  I  made  answer,  "and  a  bitter  thing 
to  have  in  my  mind." 

"Well,  and  aren't  you  wise  enough  to 
prefer  the  bitter  things  to  the  sweet 
things?"  said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 
"For  every  sweet  thing  that  you  have  in 
your  mind,  it  is  yours  to  pay  a  mighty  bit 
ter  price.  Whereas  the  bitter  things  are 
valuable  possessions.  And  if  it  is  true 
about  your  friends,  of  course  you  wish  to 
know  it." 

"No,"  said  I,  "I  don't  wish  to  know  it." 
"But,  at  least,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  with  a  wonderful  softening  of  her 
voice  into  something  that  was  sincere  and 
enchanting,  "believe  what  I  told  you 
about  it,  for  in  that  case  you  and  I  have 
that  good  gift — a  bond  of  sympathy.  For 
if  I  had  friends,  of  that  kind,  they  would 
look  upon  me  as  something  with  much  to 
acquire,  very  sure.  But  don't,"  said  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee,  hastily,  "consider  the 


A   BOND   OF   SYMPATHY  231 

bond  of  sympathy  a  sweet  thing — remem 
ber  the  mighty  bitter  price." 

"I  will  believe  what  you  said  about  the 
friends,"  said  I— "and  it  is  bitter  enough  to 
purge  my  soul  for  a  time.  The  bond  of 
sympathy  is  not  a  sweet  thing,  anyway. 
I  don't  expect  to  have  to  pay  for  it—  And 
it  brings  a  feeling  of  restfulness.  — 

"A  bond  of  sympathy,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee,  "comes  already  paid  for. 
It  does  very  well.  It  is  not  sweet — it 
tastes  more  like  a  cigarette  or  an  olive. 

"About  the  verse  " — said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

"Please  let's  not  talk  about  that  any 
more,"  said  I. 

"Whatever  you  like,"  said  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee. 

And  we  talked  of  George  Sand  and  her 
books. 

But,  anyway,  this  was  my  bit  of  unripe 
verse : 


232  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

Yesterday  my  star  went  down  in  the  deep  sha 
dows. 

It  went  lightly 

Like  the  rippling  of  water; 

And  many  tiny  dear  things  went  with  it,  and  I 
watched  them: 

I  knew  that  my  star  would  never  rise  again. 

Yesterday  my  star  went  down  in  the  deep  sha 
dows. 

It  went  softly 

Like  the  half-lights  of  evening; 

And  as  it  went  my  frantic  thoughts  pursued  it 
without  hoping: 

I  knew  that  my  star  would  never  rise  again. 

Yesterday  my  star  went  down  in  the  deep  sha 
dows. 

It  went  tenderly 

Like  my  friend  who  loves  me; 

But  since  it's  gone  the  way  shows  dark — my 
two  eyes  are  tired  watching: 

I  know  that  my  star  will  never  rise  again. 


mi 

THE    MESSAGE    OF   A   TENDER    SOUL 

THE  MESSAGE  of  a  tender  soul," 
said  my  friend  Annabel  Lee,  "is  a 
thing  that  will  go  far,  oh,  so  far, 
and  lose  nothing  of  itself. 

"When  all  things  in  the  world  are 
counted  the  beautiful  things  are  in  the 
greatest  numbers.  And  when  all  the 
things  in  the  world  are  counted  the  mes 
sage  of  a  tender  soul  counts  greatly  more 
than  many. 

"A  tender  soul  receives  back  no  grati 
tude  for  its  message,  and  looks  for  no 
gratitude,  and  does  not  know  what  grati 
tude  means.  And  the  tenderness  of  the 
message  is  all  unmade  and  all  unknown, 
but  is  felt  for  long,  long  years. 

"The  message  of   a  tender  soul   goes 
233 


234  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

over  the  sea  into  the  lonesomeness  of  the 
night  and  nothing  stops  it  on  the  way, 
for  all  know  what  it  is  and  bid  it  god 
speed.  And  it  goes  down  and  around  a 
mountain  to  a  house  where  there  is  woe, 
and  if  before  it  came  that  house  had 
turned  away  charity  and  love  and  friend 
ship  and  good-will  and  peace,  and  had 
sent  a  curse  after  them  all,  still  it  opens 
wide  its  doors  for  the  message  of  a  tender 
soul.  For  its  coming  is  not  heralded,  and 
the  soul  that  sends  it  does  not  even  know 
its  tenderness,  and  the  hearts  of  all  in 
that  house  where  there  is  woe — they  are 
deeply,  unknowingly  comforted.  And  it 
goes  upon  the  barrenness  of  a  country 
side  where  there  is  not  one  green  thing 
growing,  and  the  barrenness  is  then  more 
than  paradise,  had  paradise  no  such  mes 
sage.  And  it  goes  where  lovely  flowers 
grow  in  thousands,  where  sparkling  water 
mingles  with  sparkling  water  and 


THE    MESSAGE    OF   A   TENDER    SOUL     235 

quenches  thirst,  wnere  the  long  gray 
moss  hangs  from  birch-trees,  where  pale 
clouds  float — and  itself  is  more  beautiful 
than  all  these.  Have  you  felt  all  those 
tender  things  that  go  down  into  the 
depths?  They  bring  comfort,  but  also 
they  bring  tears  into  the  eyes  and  pain 
into  the  heart.  The  message  of  a  tender 
soul — what  does  it  bring  but  ineffable 
comfort  to  the  heart?  You  do  not  feel 
that  it  is  a  message,  you  do  not  feel  it  to 
be  a  divinely  beautiful  thing.  There  are 
no  sudden  salt  tears.  Only  the  message 
is  there — only  it  does  that  for  which  it  is 
sent.  Have  you  gone  out  and  done  all 
the  work  that  you  could  do,  and  done  it 
faithfully  and  asked  no  reward — and  have 
you  come  back  and  cried  out  in  bitterness 
of  spirit?  Then,  it  may  be,  came  won- 
drously  beautiful  things  from  over  the 
way  to  tell  you,  Take  heart.  But  there 
was  no  'take  heart'  for  you.  Then  it  may 


236  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

be  there  came  from  that  way  which  you 
were  not  looking,  the  message  of  a  ten 
der  soul.  Then  there  was  comfort,  and 
with  no  tears  of  pain  and  no  bitter,  bitter 
tears  of  joy.  There  was  deep  comfort  so 
that  you  could  go  out  and  work  again  and 
for  no  reward.  There  is  work  that  has 
no  reward.  For  those  that  work  for  no 
reward  there  can  be  no  comfort  in  all  the 
vastness  except  the  message  of  a  tender 
soul.  Have  you  gone  out  and  done 
all  the  evil  you  could  do,  in  cruel  ways, 
and  taken  away  faith  in  some  one  from 
some  one — and  have  come  back  and 
suffered  more  than  any  of  them?  Then 
it  may  be  there  came  the  message  of  a 
tender  soul — and  many,  many  other 
things  faded  from  your  heart.  And  still 
there  were  no  tears.  And  if  there  is  too 
much  for  you  in  living,  and  if  the  count 
less  things  near  and  far  in  the  world 
crowd  over  you  and  fill  you  with  horrible 


THE    MESSAGE    OF   A   TENDER    SOUL     237 

fear,  then,  if  the  message  of  a  tender  soul 
comes,  one  by  one  they  step  backward, 
and  in  your  heart  is  comfort  for  the  long, 
long  years. 

"There  have  been  those  that  have  had 
happiness  that  was  more  than  the  world, 
but  in  the  end  there  was  no  comfort,  for 
their  happiness  brought  with  it  tears  of 
joy  and  emotion  that  had  limitless 
source. 

41  If  you  have  wanted  happiness  and 
have  hungered  and  thirsted,  after  there 
came  the  message  of  a  tender  soul,  you 
were  content  with  a  branch  from  a  green 
pine-tree. 

"If  you  have  felt  a  thousand  tender 
things  and  have  drunk  from  a  thousand 
cups  and  then  have  been  about  to  write  it 
in  black  lettering  that  all,  all  have  failed 
you — if  then  there  came  the  message  of  a 
tender  soul,  you  have  written  instead  that 
nothing  has  failed  you,  and  you  have 


238  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

turned  back  your  footsteps  and  have  tried 
it  all  again. 

"If  for  you  and  me  to-day  there  should 
come  over  frozen  hills  and  green  mead 
ows  from  a  far  country  the  message  of 
a  tender  soul,  should  we  shiver  when  it 
is  dark  and  should  we  dread  the  com 
ing  of  the  years,  and  should  we  consider 
what  would  bring  weariness  and  what 
would  bring  rest,  and  should  we  measure 
and  contemplate?  But  no.  For  the  mes 
sage  of  a  tender  soul  is  a  message  from 
one  that  has  found  the  quiet  and  is  abso 
lutely  at  peace,  and  has  gone  so  far 
toward  the  stars  and  so  far  and  wide 
over  the  green  earth  that  she  has  indeed 
reached  the  truth,  and  her  soul  gives  of 
its  tenderness  without  thinking,  and  with 
out  knowing,  and  all  in  the  dark. 

"And  when  we  should  feel  the  message, 
all  without  knowing,  there  would  come 
again  that  long-since  faith,  and  that  full- 


THE   MESSAGE    OF   A   TENDER   SOUL     239 

ness  of  life,  and  that  sense  of  realness, 
and  the  shining  of  the  sun  would  be  of 
new  meaning. 

"It  may  be,"  said  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "that  we  will  have  to  go  still  farther 
into  the  wilderness  before  the  message 
conies,  and  it  may  be  also  that  it  will  not 
come  for  many  years. 

"But  it  is  in  all  ways  comforting  to 
know  there  is  such  a  thing." 

More  than  I  considered  the  message 
that  might  come,  I  considered  the  voice 
with  no  hardness  but  with  softness,  and 
the  lily  face  of  my  friend  Annabel  Lee. 


ffffl 

ME    TO    MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

I  WROTE    the   day  before    yesterday 
this  letter  to  my  friend  Annabel  Lee: 

Montreal. 

Dear  Fair  Lady: 

Since  I  have  come  to  stay  in  Montreal 
for  a  time,  and  you  still  in  Boston,  I  have 
seen  you,  times,  even  more  vividly  than 
when  I  was  there.  You  come  into  my 
dreams  at  dead  of  night. 

Can  you  imagine  what  you  are  in  my 
dreams? 

I  look  forward  impatiently  to  the  end 
of  my  time  here,  so  that  I  may  go  to  find 
you  again; — but  my  impatience  grows 
someway  less  when  I  think  that  if  I  am 
with  you  this  vision  may  vanish  from  my 

dreams. 

241 


242  MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

I  will  write  you  of  some  of  the  things  I 
have  found  here. 

There  is  much  in  Montreal  that  takes 
me  back  into  the  dim  mists — the  wonder 
ful  days  when  I  had  lived  only  three 
years.  It  was  not  here,  but  farther  west— 
still  what  is  in  Canada  is  Canadian  and 
does  not  change  nor  vary.  This  Cana 
dian  land  and  water  and  air  awakens 
shadow-things  in  my  memory  and  visions 
and  voices  of  the  world  as  it  was  when  I 
was  three. 

It  is  all  exceeding  fair  to  look  upon 
about  here.  The  fields  are  green,  not  as 
they  are  in  Massachusetts,  but  as  they 
might  be  in  the  south  of  France.  There 
is  a  beautiful,  broad,  blue  river  that  can  be 
seen  from  far  off,  and  it  sends  out  a  haze 
and  then  all  is  gray  French  country,  and 
gray  French  villages.  When  you  come 
near  you  see  the  French  peasants  work 
ing  in  the  fields — old  men  and  maidens, 


ME  TO  MY  FRIEND  ANNABEL  LEE         243 

and  very  old,  strange-looking  women,  all 
with  no  English  words  in  their  mouths 
and  no  English  thing  in  their  lives  if  they 
can  avoid  it.  They  wear  brass  rings  on 
their  hands  and  in  their  ears,  and  the 
women  wear  gay-colored  fish-wife  petti 
coats,  and  in  all  their  faces  and  eyes  is 
that  look  that  comes  from  working  always 
among  vegetables  in  the  sun,  the  look  of 
a  piteous,  useless  brain. 

And  there  is  the  strange,  long,  tree- 
covered  hill  that  they  call  Mount  Royal. 
I  have  in  my  mind  a  picture  of  it  in  a  by 
gone  century,  when  an  adventurous,  brave 
Frenchman  and  a  few  Indians  of  the  wild 
stood  high  at  its  summit — he  with  the 
French  flag  unfurled  in  the  wind,  and  the 
Indians  shading  their  eyes  and  looking 
off  and  down  into  the  valley.  And  there 
was  not  one  sign  of  human  life  in  the  val 
ley,  and  all  was  wild  growth  and  tangled 
underbrush,  and  death-like  silence,  except 


244  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

maybe  for  the  far-off  sound  of  flying  wild 
hoofs  in  the  forest.  And  now  this  hill  is 
the  lodging-place  of  many  things  hidden 
among  the  trees — convents  set  about  with 
tall,  thick,  solid  stone  walls,  and  inside  the 
walls  are  heavy-swathed  nuns  who  have 
said  their  farewell  to  all  things  without. 
And  there  are  hospitals  founded  and 
endowed  in  the  name  of  the  Virgin,  and 
Jesuit  colleges,  and  the  lodges  of  priests 
and  brotherhoods. 

And  in  the  midst  of  the  St.  Lawrence 
valley  where  the  Indians  looked  down  is 
this  old  gray-stone  city,  and  in  the  Place 
d'Armes  square  is  a  fine  triumphant 
statue  of  Maisonneuve  with  his  French 
flag. 

This  gray-stone  city  is  builded  thick 
with  gray-stone  cathedrals,  and  some  of 
them  are  very  fine,  and  some  of  them  are 
parti-colored  as  rainbows  inside,  and  all 
of  them  are  Roman  Catholic  and  French. 


ME  TO  MY  FRIEND  ANNABEL  LEE         245 

The  Protestant  churches  are  but 
churches. 

And  the  Notre  Dame  cathedral,  when 
the  setting  sun  touches  its  great,  tall,  gray, 
twin  towers  with  red,  is  even  more  than 
French  and  Roman  Catholic.  The  white- 
faced  women  in  the  nunnery  at  the  side 
of  it  must  need  have  a  likeness  of  those 
eternal  towers  graven  on  their  narrow 
devout  hearts.  Within,  the  Notre  Dame 
is  most  gorgeous  with  brilliant-colored 
saints  and  Virgins  and  a  passion  of 
wealth  and  Romanism. 

And  is  it  not  wonderful  to  think  that 
many  of  these  gray-stone  buildings  and 
dwellings  were  here  in  the  sixteen  hun 
dreds,  and  that  gray  nuns  walked  in  these 
same  green  gardens  two  centuries  ago? 
And  the  same  country  was  about  here, 
and  the  same  blue  water. 

And  when  all  is  said,  the  country  and 
the  blue  water  have  been  here  always, 


246  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

and  are  the  most  wonderful  things  of  all. 
If  the  gray-stone  buildings  were  of  yellow 
gold  and  of  emeralds  and  brilliants,  the 
green  country  would  be  no  fairer  and  no 
less  exquisitely  fair,  and  the  blue  of  the 
water  would  go  no  deeper  into  the  heart 
and  no  less  deep,  and  the  pale  clouds 
would  float  high  and  gently  with  the  same 
old-time  mystery.  And  the  centuries  they 
know  are  countless. 

The  natural  things  are  the  same  in 
Massachusetts — but  here  they  seem  some 
way  even  older.  You  feel  the  breath  of 
the  very  long-ago  among  the  wildness  of 
green — as  if  only  human  beings  had  come 
and  gone,  but  it  had  never  changed  its 
smallest  twig  or  grass-blade.  It  seems 
but  waiting,  and  its  patience  in  the  wait 
ing  is  without  end. 

Away  on  the  other  side  of  the  tree- 
covered  mountain  I  have  seen  a  flat, 
gently-curved,  country  road  with  the  sun- 


ME  TO  MY  FRIEND  ANNABEL  LEE        247 

shine  upon  it  and  a  few  little  English 
sparrows  alighting  and  flying  along  it  and 
picking  at  grains.  And  the  grass  by  the 
road-side  was  tall  and  rank  and  sweet  to 
the  senses,  and  the  road  led  to  farms  and 
the  river  and  the  wildwood.  Cows  were 
feeding  by  a  shallow  brook,  and  there 
were  sumach  bushes,  thick  and  dark, 
near  by. 

For  several  minutes  when  my  eyes 
rested  upon  this  I  felt  absolutely  content 
with  all  of  life. 

While  I'm  telling  you  this,  Annabel 
Lee,  I  am  not  quite  sure  you  are  listening 
—and  for  myself,  I  see  you  much  more 
than  anything  I  have  talked  about.  I  am 
wondering  how  it  is  possible  that  you 
have  lived  only  fourteen  years — even  the 
fourteen  years  of  a  Japanese  woman. 
And  I  see  again  in  my  mind — your  red 
lips,  and  your  dead-black  hair,  and  your 
purple  eyes,  and  your  wonderful  hands, 


248  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE 

and  your  forehead  with  the  widow's  peak, 
and  the  two  short  side-locks  that  curve 
around,  and  your  slimness  in  the  scarlet 
and  gold-embroidered  gown. 

And  most  of  all  I  see  your  eyes  when 
they  are  full  of  soft  purple  shadows,  and 
your  lips  when  they  are  tender — and  your 
heart,  as  I  have  seen  it  before,  and  its 
depths  which  are  of  the  white  purity. 

Last  night  there  was  the  vision  of  you 
with  your  purple  eyes  wide  and  gazing 
down  at  me  with  the  white  lids  still.  And 
I  was  horror-struck  at  the  look  of  world- 
weariness  in  them — how  that  it  is  terrible, 
how  that  it  follows  one  into  the  darkness 
and  light,  how  that  it  is  grief  and  rage 
and  madness,  how  that  it  makes  the 
heart  ache  until  all  the  life-nerves  ache 
with  it — and  there  is  no  end;  how  that  it 
is  life  and  death,  and  one  can  not  escape! 
— a  world  of  tears  and  entreating  and 
vows;  but  no,  there  is  no  escape. 


ME  TO  MY  FRIEND  ANNABEL  LEE         249 

And  then  again  I  looked  up  at  your 
purple  eyes  gazing  down  at  me  full  of 
strong,  high  scorn  and  triumph.  "Do 
you  think  we  have  not  conquered  life?" 
they  said.  "Do  you  think  we  can  not  crush 
out  all  the  little  demons  that  presume  to 
torture?  Do  you  think  we  can  not  con 
quer  everything?  Who  is  there  that  we 
have  not  known?  Where  is  there  that  we 
have  not  been?  Are  there  any  still,  still 
shadows  that  we  have  cringed  before? 
Are  there  any  brilliant  lights  upon  the 
sky  that  we  have  not  faced  boldly  and 
put  aside?  And  the  stones  and  the  stars 
and  the  mists  on  the  sea  are  less — less 
than  we,  —  we  are  the  greatest  things 
of  all." 

Thus  your  two  eyes  when  I  slept,  and 
when  I  woke  I  saw  you  again  as  you  have 
looked  so  many  times — the  expression  of 
your  red  lips,  and  your  voice  with  vague 
bitterness,  and  your  lily  face  inscrutable. 


250  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

I  shall  see  you  so  again  many  times,  my 
friend  Annabel  Lee.— 

The  fact  remains  that  I  am  in  Montreal 
and  Canada.  And  as  the  days  run  along 
I  am  reminded  that  I  have  in  me  the  old 
Canadian  instincts.  The  word  "Canadian" 
has  always  called  up  in  my  raind  a  con 
fused  throng  of  things,  like — porridge  for 
tea,  and  Sir  Hugh  Mac  Donald,  and 
Dominion  Day,  and  my  aunt  Elizabeth 
Mac  Lane,  and  old-fashioned  pictures  of 
her  majesty  the  queen,  and  Orangemen's 
Day,  and  "good-night"  for  good-evening, 
and  "reel  of  cotton"  for  spool  of  thread, 
and  "tin"  instead  of  can,  and  Canadian 
cheese,  and  rawsberries  in  a  patent  pail, 
and  the  Queen's  Own  in  Toronto,  and 
soldiers  in  red  coats,  and  children  in 
Scotch  kilts,  and  jam-tarts,  and  barley- 
sugar,  and  whitefish  from  Lake  Winni 
peg,  and  the  C.  P.  R.,  and  the  Parliament 
at  Ottawa,  and  coasting  in  toboggans, 


ME  TO  MY  FRIEND  ANNABEL  LEE         251 

and  Lord  Aberdeen,  and  everything- 
coming-over-from-England-so-much  -  bet- 
ter-and  -  cheaper  -  than  -  American -ware, — 
and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  And  my  mind 
has  always  had  a  color  for  Canada — a 
shade  of  mingled  deep  green  and  golden 
brown. 

Even  in  Montreal,  where  so  much  is 
French,  there  is  enough  to  stamp  it  as 
beyond  question  Canadian.  One  still 
sees  marks  of  her  majesty  the  queen — 
but  shop-keepers  assert  confidently  that 
"Edward  is  going  to  make  a  good  king," 
and  Canadian  men  are  made  up  as  nearly 
as  possible  after  his  pattern,  stout  and 
with  that  short  pointed  beard. 

In  the  greenness  of  Dominion  Square 
is  the  most  beautiful  piece  of  sculpture  I 
have  seen.  All  the  statues  that  stand 
about  in  Montreal  are  finer  than  most  of 
their  kind,  and  there  are  no  such  hideous 
creations  as  are  set  up  in  Boston  and 


252  MY   FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

New  York.  The  Dominion  Square  statue 
is  a  bronze  figure  of  a  Sir  John  A. 
Mac  Donald.  The  face  of  the  figure  is 
all  that  is  serene  and  benign,  and  the 
lines  of  the  body  and  of  the  hands  are 
made  with  strength  and  beauty.  Whether 
it  is  like  Sir  John  A.  Mac  Donald,  one  does 
not  know — 'tis  enough  that  it's  an  exqui 
site  piece  of  workmanship  with  which  to 
adorn  a  city.  And  the  Maisonneuve 
statue  is  a  fine,  handsome  thing,  and  is 
altogether  alive.  The  bronze  is  no 
bronze,  but  has  seventeenth-century  red 
blood  in  its  veins,  and  the  arm  that  is 
held  high  and  the  hand  with  the  flag 
mean  conquest  and  victory. 

I  shall  see  Quebec  and  the  length  of 
the  blue  river  before  I  see  you  again,  and 
they,  like  Montreal,  will  be  mingled  with 
a  many-tinted  looking-forward  to  being 
with  you  again. 

High  upon  the  tower  of  a  gray-stone 


ME  TO  MY  FRIEND  ANNABEL  LEE         253 

building  that  I  see  from  my  window  is  a 
carved  gorgon's  head,  a  likeness  of 
Medusa  with  snaky  locks  She  is  hun 
dreds  of  feet  above  me  as  I  sit  here,  but  I 
see  the  expression  of  her  face  plainly — it 
is  desolate  and  discouraging.  It  says,  Do 
you  think  you  will  see  that  fair  lily  Anna 
bel  Lee  again?  Well,  then,  how  foolish 
are  you  in  your  day  and  generation!  I 
in  my  years  have  seen  the  passing  of 
many  fair  lilies.  Always  they  pass. — 

Tell  me,  Annabel  Lee, — always  do  they 
pass?  But  no — I  shall  find  you  again. 
You  will  make  all  things  many-tinted  for 
a  thousand  thousands  of  gold  days.  And 
are  we  not  good  friends  in  way  and 
manner?  And  do  we  not  go  the  foot- 
pathway  together? 

But  I  wonder  always  why  the  gorgon 
seems  so  fearfully  knowing. — 

Always  my  love  to  you. 

MARY  MAC  LANE. 


A 


MY    FRIEND   ANNABEL   LEE   TO   ME 

ND  after  some  days  my  friend 
Annabel  Lee  wrote  me  this  upon 
a  square  of  rice  paper: 


Boston, — Monday. 

Dear  Mary  Mac  Lane:  —  Don't  you 
know  a  gorgon  is  the  knowingest  thing 
in  the  land? 

You  may  believe  what  your  friend  says 
of  fair  lilies. 

But  have  I  ever  said  that  I  am  a  fair 
lily? 

As  for  my  eyes — they  are  good  chiefly 
to  see  with.  And  they  are  bad  for  many 
things. 

Yes — get  thee  home  soon,  child. 

I  miss  you  when  I  come  to  deck  me 
255 


256  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

mornings  with  my  lavender  slip  and  my 
scarlet  frock.  And  the  gold  marguerites 
have  not  been  brushed  since  you  went 
away. 

Naught  have  I  to  bear  me  company 
except  Ellen,  the  faithful  little  tan  deer — 
and  she  can  not  wait  upon  me,  and  she 
cannot  worship  me. 

What  hast  done  with  Martha  Goneril 
the  cat? 

I  would  fain  you  had  left  her  here. 

But  Mary  Mac  Lane — you.  Do  you 
know  about  it? 

YOUR   FRIEND  ANNABEL  LEE. 


THE   GOLDEN    RIPPLE 

MY  friend  Annabel  Lee  and  I  are 
similar  to  each  other  in  a  few, 
few  ways.  Daily  we  contemplate 
together  a  great,  blank  wall  built  up  of 
dull,  blue  stones.  It  stands  before  us  and 
we  can  not  get  over  it,  for  it  is  too  high; 
neither  can  we  walk  around  it,  for  it  is 
too  long;  and  we  can  not  go  through  it, 
for  it  is  solid  and  very  thick.  It  is 
directly  across  the  road.  We  have  both 
come  but  a  short  way  on  the  road — so 
short  that  we  can  easily  look  back  over 
our  course  to  the  point  where  we  started. 
We  did  not  walk  together  from  there, 
but  we  have  met  each  other  now  before 

the  great,  blank  wall  of  blue  stones. 
257 


258  MY   FRIEND   ANNABEL  LEE 

We  have  stopped  here,  for  we  can  not 
go  on. 

I  wonder  and  conjecture  much  about 
the  wall,  and  my  friend  Annabel  Lee 
regards  it  sometimes  with  interest  and 
sometimes  with  none. 

And,  times,  we  forget  all  about  the  wall 
and  merely  sit  and  rest  in  the  shade  it 
casts,  or  walk  back  on  the  road,  or  in 
the  grass  about  it,  or  pluck  a  few  wild 
sweet  berries  from  the  stunted  wayside 
briers. 

And,  too,  when  a  thunder  storm  comes 
up  and  the  air  is  full  of  wind  and  rain 
slanting  and  whistling  about  us,  we 
crouch  close  against  the  base  of  the  wall, 
and  we  do  not  become  so  wet  as  we 
should  were  there  no  wall. 

But  that  is  only  when  the  wind  is  from 
beyond  it. 

When  the  wind  with  its  flood  of  rain 
comes  toward  us  as  we  crouch  by  the  wall 


THE    GOLDEN    RIPPLE  259 

we  are  beaten  and  drenched  and  buffeted 
and  driven  hard  against  that  cold,  blue 
surface.  And  the  ragged  edges  of  the 
rocks  make  bruises  on  our  foreheads. 

Some  days  we  become  exceeding  weary 
with  looking  at  the  great  blank  wall— 
and  with  having  looked  at  it  already  for 
many  a  day,  and  many  a  day. 

"It  is  so  high  and  so  thick,"  I  say. 

"It  is  so  long,"  says  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee. 

To  all  appearances  we  have  gone  as  far 
upon  the  road  as  we  ever  can  go.  We 
can  not  get  over  the  wall  of  blue  stones— 
and  we  can  not  walk  round — and  we  can 
not  go  through.  There  is  nothing  to 
indicate  that  it  will  ever  be  removed. 

The  field  for  conjecture  as  to  what  lies 
on  the  other  side  of  the  road  is  so  vast 
that  we  do  not  venture  to  conjecture. 

But  we  have  talked  often  and  madly  of 
the  wall  itself. 


260  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 

"Perhaps,"  I  say,  "it  is  that  the  wall  is 
placed  here  before  our  eyes  to  hide  from 
us  our  limitations/' 

"Perhaps,"  says  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "it  is  that  the  wall  itself  is  our  limit 
ations." 

Which,  if  it  is  true,  is  very  damnable. 

For  though  human  beings  have  done 
some  divine  things  they  have  never  gone 
beyond  their  limitations. 

The  blue  of  the  stones  in  the  wall  is  not 
a  dark  blue,  but  it  is  very  cold.  It  is  the 
color  that  is  called  stone  blue. 

It  never  changes. 

The  sun  and  the  shade  look  alike  upon 
it;  and  the  wet  rain  does  not  brighten  it; 
neither  do  thick  clouds  of  dust  make  it  dull. 

It  is  stone  blue. 

Except  for  this: 

Once  in  a  number  of  days,  in  fair 
weather  or  foul,  there  will  come  upon  the 
wide  blankness  a  rippling  like  gold. 


THE    GOLDEN    RIPPLE  26 1 

It  lingers  a  second  and  vanishes — and 
appears  again.  And  then  it's  gone  until 
another  time. 

How  tender,  how  lovely,  how  bright  is 
the  golden  ripple  against  the  cold,  cold 
blue! 

It  is  come  and  gone  in  a  minute. 

We  do  not  know  its  coming  or  its 
going. 

But  while  we  see  it  our  hearts  beat  high 
and  fast. 

"It  may  be,"  I  say  when  it  is  gone,  "that 
this  golden  ripple  will  show  us  some  way 
to  get  beyond  the  wall  where  things  are 
divine." 

"It  may  be,"  says  my  friend  Annabel 
Lee,  "that  the  golden  ripple  will  show  us 
something  divine  among  these  few  things 
on  this  side  of  the  wall." 


262  MY    FRIEND    ANNABEL   LEE 


My  friend,  A  nnabel  Lee — withy  our  strong, 
brave  little  heart  and  your  two  strong  little 
hands,  you  were  with  me  in  my  weary,  bitter 
day.  You  were  brave  enough  for  two.  It 
is  to  you  from  me  that  a  message  will  go 
from  out  of  silences  and  over  frozen  hills  in 
the  years  that  are  coming. 


THE    END 


PRINTED  BY  R.  R.  DONNELLEY 
AND  SONS  COMPANY,  AT  THE 
LAKESIDE  PRESS,  CHICAGO,  ILL. 


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